UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 
 Donated in memory of 
 
 John W. Snvder 
 
 His Son and Daughter 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 ANCHORS AWEIGH
 
 Puffing ... the tugs warped the ship from the pier . . . thoved her 
 tideways . . . and moved ahead . . . down-stream.
 
 ANCHORS AWEIGH 
 
 BY 
 
 HARRIET WELLES 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 HON. JOSEPHUS DANIELS 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1919
 
 CorruoR. 1017. 1918. 1019. n 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Febnuy, 1010
 
 TO 
 
 ROGER
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 "THAT isn't merely a story of the Navy: 
 it is a classic." 
 
 With these words to one very dear I laid 
 down the magazine from which I had read 
 aloud Harriet Welles's story of "The Ad- 
 miral's Birthday." It was the kind of in- 
 timate touch of the love of husband and wife 
 that makes one "teary around the lashes," 
 as Lowell would say. That was my first in- 
 troduction to the stories of this interpreter 
 of the phase of Navy life that makes Navy 
 people one big family. It is a life of separa- 
 tions and many honeymoons, for "Orders" 
 take the male partners to all corners of the 
 globe. The wife must wait at home while 
 the husband braves the danger of the deep, 
 and latterly the terrors of the submarine 
 stiletto. She may not so deeply do both 
 Navy tradition and Navy superstition domi- 
 nate all in the service stand on the shore and 
 
 vii
 
 viii Introduction 
 
 wave "good-by" to her sailor as his ship sails 
 away. "It is bad luck," all sailor wives will 
 tell you, to "watch your husband's ship as it 
 sets sail." So the "good-by" must be said 
 in some inn or hotel in the port if it happens 
 she can accompany him to the place of em- 
 barkation. Or she remains at home with the 
 bairns, and gives him a brave farewell while 
 the yearning for his home-staying tugs at 
 her heart. For these arc valorous sailor 
 wives. She must not let her man go to sea 
 without the smile of victory over her longing 
 to keep him close by the fireside. 
 
 Mrs. Welles has given us the true in- 
 terpretation of the home a Navy woman 
 makes when, with the partner gone, she 
 is waiting for his ship to come back. She 
 makes you actually feel, gives you thrill of 
 the reunited hearts when "Jack comes home 
 again." There are more honeymoons in the 
 Navy than in any other service, for the end 
 of every tour of sea duty is another new 
 mating of heart with heart. The pang of 
 the parting ! Is it compensated for by the 
 joy of the return ? 
 
 "The Admiral's Birthday" gave me such
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 pleasure that all her other stories have been 
 eagerly read. The latest, "Orders," has the 
 pathos and the tragedy of the great war which 
 still casts its sombre shadow over us. The 
 gifted writer has imparted something of the 
 feeling of sympathy all of us had felt in the 
 Navy Department as the brave naval officer 
 walked in the shadow while his wife, equally 
 brave, "crossed over the river." They were 
 in the Service, and Duty was the supreme 
 command. The devoted wife was buoyed up 
 for the moment by her pride in her husband's 
 great enterprise. Who can even faintly un- 
 derstand how great the sacrifice and how 
 noble the courage when she bade him go with 
 his great guns to make a new glory for the 
 Navy ! Such renunciation must have been 
 pleasing to the All Good as he looked down and 
 saw the bravery of her spirit rising superior 
 to her weakness of body. And the captain 
 the heroic spirit restless and ambitious to 
 do the great things of which he had dreamed 
 and planned. Was it possible to make naval 
 ordnance a decisive force in land warfare ? 
 That had been debated. He had argued, and 
 he had won. It was given to me to sign his
 
 x Introduction 
 
 "Orders." War is imperative he must go 
 at once or the opportunity would pass and 
 victory be delayed. Must he renounce the 
 call of duty and opportunity to remain by 
 the side of her who was dearer to him than 
 life ? The doctors told him the malady was 
 incurable, and he could not help her, but that 
 did not make the going a lesser agony. 
 Should he go ? That was the path of duty 
 to service and to country. Should he stay ? 
 That was the heart's desire and the man's 
 intense longing. Which was the bravest: 
 the stricken wife, who talked of future honey- 
 moon trips while she sent him away knowing 
 they would never look into each other's eyes 
 in life, or the husband, clutching at his 
 throat and staggering through the night as 
 he shut out the light of her eyes to hasten to 
 danger and duty ? If "The Admiral's Birth- 
 day" was a classic, "Orders" is an epic, and 
 the other stories have a glow and tender pathos 
 which have permitted other than Navy eyes 
 to look upon the lights and shadows of a ser- 
 vice which has lately come into new apprecia- 
 tion by the American people. It is only a 
 glimpse, but let us hope Mrs. Welles will give
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 us other pen pictures of those conquerors of 
 the sea whose love is as tender as their pro- 
 fession is rigorous. It might truly be said 
 of the men Mrs. Welles depicts: 
 
 "The bravest are the tenderest 
 The loving are the daring." 
 
 JOSEPHUS DANIELS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. IN THE DAY'S WORK i 
 
 II. THE ADMIRAL'S BIRTHDAY 33 
 
 III. BETWEEN THE TREATY PORTS 47 
 
 IV. ORDERS 79 
 
 V. ANCHORS AWEIGH 98 
 
 VI. DUTY FIRST 105 
 
 VII. THE ADMIRAL'S HOLLYHOCKS 128 
 
 VIII. THE DAY 165 
 
 IX. HOLDING MAST 186 
 
 X. THE WALL 197 
 
 XL GUAM AND EFFIE 214 
 
 XII. FLAGS 251
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Puffing . . . the tugs warped the ship from the pier . . . 
 shoved her sideways . . . and moved ahead . . . down- 
 stream Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Even as they turned, the ship, with a sharp upward 
 swing of her stern, lifted it high in the air then 
 plunged down through the icy water 30 
 
 The air was full of their volubly reiterated good wishes 44 
 
 "She sat at one end of that a revolver in reach of each 
 
 hand! When any one tried to cheat or argue 1" 68 
 
 Far away ... in a hospital waiting-room his wife was 
 
 sitting .' 118 
 
 "'Pirate never so bad before on Yangtze! Catch-ee 
 
 junk, kill-ee crew, steal-ee cargo!' " 134 
 
 "Mark Simmons. Reported by the officer of the deck 
 for overstaying liberty eight hours," read the yeo- 
 man 188 
 
 "It'll be lonely for you, especially as Hugh finds it con- 
 venient to be away so much" 236
 
 ANCHORS AWEIGH 
 
 IN THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 THE old petty officer in charge of the drills 
 drew a deep breath and looked down the 
 long lines of newly enlisted apprentice sea- 
 men. A few of the boys were from the poorer 
 quarters of near-by cities and towns; some 
 were from the farming districts; but the 
 greater number were undergraduates from 
 colleges and universities flocking to the colors 
 at the first intimation of their country's need, 
 and all were astonishingly transformed, by 
 the mere donning of uniforms and caps, into 
 potential sailors for the ships of the United 
 States navy. 
 
 The petty officer cleared his throat. Some- 
 how the sunshiny parade-ground, bordered 
 by cheerful, yellow-brick barracks and backed 
 by the sparkling blue of Narragansett Bay 
 and the distant, pointed spires of Newport
 
 2 In the Day's Work 
 
 churches, seemed too incongruously peaceful 
 compared with the things of which he was 
 trying to speak. He cleared his throat again. 
 
 "I'd like to remind you, lads," he said, 
 "that there are some things in our navy that 
 you'll have to learn for yourselves. We can 
 teach you the manual of arms and the drills; 
 and there are schools here to train you for 
 any branch of ship's work that you have a 
 leaning toward wireless, electricity, signal 
 corps, hospital corps, engineering, cooking, 
 and yeoman's work but what you've got 
 to get, if you're to be of any real use, is the 
 spirit of the navy ! 
 
 "Maybe there's those with education 
 enough to explain that spirit to you. I 
 haven't got the words. I only know what 
 it means in actions. Summed up, it amounts 
 to about this: aboard ship there ain't no 
 you and there ain't no me; there's just Us ! 
 And we're working together under the flag 
 of the finest country on earth. 
 
 "You lads have come away from your 
 folks, and your homes, and your colleges to 
 help get a bad job done; and when the job's 
 finished some of you will go back to your
 
 In the Day's Work 3 
 
 colleges, and your folks, and your homes 
 and some won't. 
 
 "But if the ones that go back have gotten 
 the real spirit of the navy the spirit that 
 was already strong when boys like you were 
 rampaging over the seas on the old wooden 
 ship Constellation that's tied up to the wharf 
 here they'll go back, and carry with them 
 through the remainder of their lives the 
 knowledge that in time of squalls their hand 
 was steady in the service of the rest of the 
 ship; that they helped, to the end, the mess- 
 mate who had fallen; and that when it 
 seemed like it was their turn next they looked 
 death straight in the eye. That's what we 
 call the Spirit of the Navy. Don't forget 
 it! 
 
 "Now! Atten-shun! I'll explain the an- 
 chor-watch to you." 
 
 The ship's doctor dropped stiffly into his 
 seat at the ward-room luncheon-table and 
 whimsically surveyed his brother officers. 
 Perhaps he had grown accustomed to the 
 white look of fatigue and tension that dis- 
 tinguishes the expression of the naval officers
 
 4 In the Day's Work 
 
 who, for months now, have faced death on 
 destroyers and transports on the North Sea; 
 perhaps his New England training came back 
 to him in half-remembered sayings about 
 enduring what can't be remedied, and the 
 hopeful suggestions of turns in seemingly 
 interminable roads. At any rate he ignored 
 the obvious and soared, conversationally, 
 into the cheerfully problematical. 
 
 "I've been wondering all morning if I 
 hadn't better try out an unpatented invention 
 of a Buddhist priest I saw in Japan," ob- 
 served the doctor, helping himself to tinned 
 sardines and damp crackers. "The old fel- 
 low was sweeping off the immaculate white 
 straw mats of a Kyoto temple, and as he 
 frisked over to collect an entrance fee of me 
 I noticed that both sides of his nose were 
 securely plugged with wads of rice-paper. 
 
 "'How come?' I questioned, pointing at 
 them. 
 
 "He waited devoutly while some wor- 
 shippers eased down on their fine work with 
 the prayer-gong before he answered, 'Cold 
 on the head, have got!' and intimated that 
 much valuable time might be lost if he had
 
 In the Day's Work 5 
 
 to stop every time he needed to blow his nose; 
 and, besides, as he indulgently informed me, 
 he hadn't ever owned a handkerchief. I've 
 been thinking of trying his scheme out on 
 the crew of this ship. 
 
 "They've every variety of cough and whoop, 
 from the copy of a lyric cry to a replica 
 of the Gregorian chant. I'll always remember 
 this cruise by the opportunities I've had to 
 study snuffles." 
 
 The mess listened with a visible easing 
 of tension. "If the old fellow's cold was 
 really bad I should think his procedure would, 
 in time, have made his brain come adrift. 
 How did he breathe?" questioned the exec- 
 utive officer. 
 
 "Oh, he just let his mouth hang jauntily 
 open. A nose isn't really a necessity any 
 more than an appendix is; it's an ornament," 
 said the doctor, cheerfully surveying the 
 mess. "Of course I don't mean that all 
 noses are ornamental," he added, and dodged 
 a cracker thrown by the navigator. 
 
 "Too bad you fellows can't get a glimpse 
 of your great-great-great-grandchildren when 
 the manufacturers of food substitutes, pre-
 
 6 In the Day's Work 
 
 servatives, and adulterations, and we sur- 
 geons have, by our combined and unceasing 
 efforts, permanently divorced them from their 
 unnecessary decorations. No teeth ! No hair ! 
 No tonsils ! No appendixes ! No gall-blad- 
 ders ! No but I'll spare you. It'll be a neat 
 and trim population in those happy days," 
 said the doctor with dramatic airiness. 
 
 "My great-great-grandchildren!" observed 
 the engineer officer, and glanced through the 
 rain-streaked port-hole past which gray, foam- 
 crested waves raced before the icy wind, 
 under a heavy sky. 
 
 A little silence fell upon the mess; they 
 all knew that the engineer officer's first-born 
 had arrived in this warring world a month 
 after its father had joined the ship, and ex- 
 cept for photographs he had never seen it. 
 His wife wrote of the baby's superlative beauty 
 and charm and planned for the happy days 
 of reunion, but somehow a shadowy forebod- 
 ing that crouched behind her cheering words 
 had eluded her and crept into the envelope 
 to loom large when the letter was opened. 
 The engineer officer broke the silence with 
 hasty querulousness.
 
 In the Day's Work 7 
 
 "Be thankful there's nothing worse than 
 colds the matter with the crew," he ad- 
 monished, and set his teeth under a swift 
 stab of pain; for several days these attacks 
 had come with increasing frequency and 
 violence. "This is no time to get sick," his 
 spirit asserted with grim anger at the inop- 
 portune besieger. 
 
 " What about my keeping in practice ? " 
 asked the doctor, and added: "These are 
 queer days in the navy ! I was talking with 
 one of the petty officers who drilled the ap- 
 prentice seamen at the training-station last 
 summer, and the old fellow was upset! He 
 had a big lot of boys fresh from different 
 colleges to train, and they overturned all his 
 previous experiences. He went carefully over 
 the manual of arms with them the first day, 
 and the next morning, to his amazed astonish- 
 ment, they executed each order with unvary- 
 ing precision. 
 
 'You know these exercises already?' he 
 questioned bewilderedly. 
 
 'Why, yes/ answered one of the boys; 
 'you told them to us yesterday.' 
 
 "You see, the new apprentice seamen
 
 8 In the Day's Work 
 
 represented the college-trained product, to 
 whom concentration is a necessity. The 
 petty officer's experience had been with boys 
 of less education, who learn by the frequent 
 repetition of drilling, and drilling, and drilling 
 the mechanical action of untrained minds," 
 explained the doctor. 
 
 "I should think that with such new ma- 
 terial we could build up a magnificent 
 personnel," exclaimed the executive enthu- 
 siastically. 
 
 The doctor smiled. "You haven't been 
 reading your little book of fables lately, or 
 you'd remember that everything has its dis- 
 advantages," he admonished, and added: 
 "The old classes of apprentice seamen hadn't 
 trained minds, but most of them had learned 
 the ground-plan rules of discipline poverty 
 generally inculcates that. The new boys 
 don't know the meaning of the word ! As 
 far as they're concerned, it's an incoherent 
 assortment of syllables made up from unin- 
 telligible letters. 
 
 "One indignant youth returned to the 
 training-station to find that the ship he was 
 assigned to had sailed. *I like their nerve
 
 In the Day's Work 9 
 
 going off without me !' he asserted in loud 
 and righteous wrath to the petty officer en- 
 gaged in warping him toward the brig. 'I 
 sent them word that my mother had come 
 up to see me, so they needn't expect me back 
 until she'd left and they've gone without 
 waiting for me !' 
 
 "Another lad had been notified that he 
 was to stand watch from four to eight, but 
 some acquaintances motored over from Nar- 
 ragansett, so he sent a message to the captain 
 that he wouldn't be able to get back until 
 later, as he was to dine with friends at a 
 restaurant which he ingenuously named. 
 Imagine his resentful indignation when, just 
 after the soup had been served, he was 
 snatched into a standing position by an un- 
 sympathetic master-at-arms. 'I sent the 
 captain word,' he expostulated. ' Is that so ? 
 What's a captain ? 'Tis the admiral you 
 should have notified,' commented the master- 
 at-arms witheringly. 
 
 "This same boy is my hospital apprentice 
 now, and he's as keen as a razor. He still 
 grins sheepishly over his farewell dinner- 
 party, but he has ideas of his own ! We have
 
 io In the Day's Work 
 
 great arguments about a surgeon's privileges 
 and responsibilities " The doctor broke off 
 and glanced about. "I don't eat more than 
 the rest of you; I talk more," he explained, 
 and turned his attention to his luncheon. 
 
 The engineer officer leaned forward. " What 
 does your hospital apprentice think a surgeon's 
 privileges are ?" he asked idly. 
 
 "Oh, the right to decide whether the future 
 holds enough for a patient to make his life 
 worth living. I tell him that no one can guess 
 what the future may hold," laughed the doc- 
 tor. 
 
 Outside the wind was rising and the rain, 
 like fine steel wires, whipped across the port- 
 holes as the ship, with undiminished speed, 
 swept along on her prescribed course. "Nasty 
 weather," commented the executive; then, 
 struck by something in the engineer officer's 
 face, asked : " What ails you ? You look 
 green and seasick!" 
 
 "Me seasick!" ejaculated the engineer, 
 with ungrammatical scorn, as he pushed 
 back his chair. "I've had a queer pain for 
 two or three days. I may be around to see 
 you later in the afternoon, doc."
 
 In the Day's Work n 
 
 The doctor nodded hospitably. "I'm 
 specializing on colds at present, but of 
 course " He glanced keenly at the en- 
 gineer officer. "Better come along with me 
 now," he suggested. 
 
 The engineer shook his head. "I've several 
 things to attend to," he said as he hurried 
 away. 
 
 "He never thinks of any engines except 
 the ship's," complained the doctor, making 
 his way back to his quarters and the routine 
 duties of his afternoon. 
 
 The doctor's tiny office was also his con- 
 sulting and operating room, and, after glanc- 
 ing about and noting that everything was 
 in order and the apprentice at his post, he 
 gave the signal for a bugler to sound sick- 
 call. 
 
 "That's a pretty call," observed the ap- 
 prentice, as the birdlike crescendo muffled 
 because of circumstances sounded through 
 the narrow passages. 
 
 "Sounds all right to those who haven't 
 anything the matter with them," growled 
 the doctor, still bothered by the engineer
 
 12 In the Day's Work 
 
 officer's white face. "Here they come," he 
 added, as the distant chorus of coughs drew 
 nearer. 
 
 "This beats the way doctors ashore sit 
 around and wait for patients," observed 
 the hospital apprentice conversationally; 
 "here, when you re ready, you just have a 
 bugle blown." He stepped back and busied 
 himself with a tray of instruments as the 
 doorway filled with a group of sailors. 
 
 The doctor glanced keenly at his patients, 
 while his capable hands moved swiftly: there 
 were some burns to dress and rebandage, 
 a wrenched arm to ease by a light sling, several 
 decreasing colds to prescribe for, an injured 
 foot to examine and pronounce cured, and 
 one feverish boy to consign to the unblemished 
 whiteness of the tiny sick-bay, where he could 
 be under observation. 
 
 "We'll get into port day after to-morrow. 
 If he develops anything in the meantime we'll 
 be able to transfer him then to a hospital 
 ashore," mused the doctor as the last pa- 
 tient filed out. 
 
 "Seems impertinent for a disease to at- 
 tack a man when he's on such duty as this,"
 
 13 
 
 observed the hospital apprentice, steadying 
 himself as the ship, after climbing up the 
 long, steep hill of a great wave, plunged 
 sharply down into a yawning gulf. 
 
 "Last year at this time I was fiddling 
 around Cambridge and Boston," said the 
 apprentice reflectively, as he closed the cover 
 of the sterilizer, "and my chief grievance 
 was that my mother would keep urging me 
 to go and see the Sargent and Abbey paint- 
 ings in the public library; she wrote about 
 them so often that it got on my nerves. It 
 seems centuries ago!" 
 
 "Did it get on your nerves enough to make 
 you obey her?" questioned the doctor. 
 
 The hospital apprentice smiled. "No," he 
 confessed, then added comfortably: "I'll go 
 and see them after the war is over; there'll 
 be lots of time for pictures then." 
 
 "You think you'll have learned by that 
 time to obey orders ? " asked the doctor. 
 
 The apprentice laughed. " Discipline is now 
 my middle name," he asserted genially. 
 
 The doctor, glancing about the tiny room, 
 noted the immaculate orderliness of the com- 
 pact arrangements, and thought: "I am
 
 14 In the Day's Work 
 
 lucky in getting that boy for a hospital appren- 
 tice. Come in ! " he called, and started forward 
 at sight of the engineer officer's drawn face. 
 
 "Yes?" questioned the doctor. 
 
 The engineer could hardly achieve a 
 twisted, rueful smile. "I've had intermittent 
 pain for nearly a week but just now some- 
 thing must have happened," he gasped, 
 and crumpled into a limp heap. The doctor 
 groaned as he felt the feverish hands and 
 wrists. "Why couldn't he have given me 
 a chance before it wore him out?" he de- 
 manded of the appalled apprentice, as the 
 engineer officer opened his heavy eyes. 
 
 There followed some moments of minute 
 examination and a hurried conference with 
 the captain and executive officer. 
 
 "The fever is rising perforated appendix, 
 I think. Ought to operate at once although 
 it's pretty rough," commented the doctor 
 with laconic brevity. "I'll do all I can to 
 hold him over until we get in to port, but, 
 of course, I won't wait a minute if in my 
 opinion the operation becomes necessary. 
 Too bad they didn't teach us to operate while 
 doing gymnastic exercises at our hospital !
 
 In the Day's Work 15 
 
 But there are fairly smooth spaces when the 
 ship is climbing a wave." 
 
 The doctor went back to the engineer's 
 cabin and relieved the hospital apprentice. 
 "You'd better get everything ready in case 
 I need them. And keep watch of that boy 
 in the sick-bay; if his temperature goes up 
 call me," said the doctor, as he settled down 
 in a chair by the narrow bunk. 
 
 The engineer officer, opening tired eyes, 
 looked at the doctor's kindly face. "Beastly 
 poor taste for me to cave in now," he said, 
 and hesitated. "Is it anything serious?" 
 he asked. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. "The usual 
 common or garden variety of appendicitis; 
 you should have come to me before. Earlier 
 there was a chance of my being able to reduce 
 the inflammation, but now I'll probably have 
 to operate," he said. 
 
 The engineer officer drew a deep breath. 
 "The pain is almost unbearable," he whis- 
 pered between clinched teeth, his face wet 
 with perspiration. 
 
 The afternoon dragged by, punctuated by 
 the creaking of straining bulkheads, the rac-
 
 16 In the Day's Work 
 
 ing of the screw, the shrieking of wind, and 
 lashing of rain, as the ship forged ahead 
 through the mist. 
 
 By evening there was no chance, in the 
 doctor's opinion, of avoiding the operation. 
 He leaned over the engineer officer and told 
 him this decision, even as he realized that 
 the wide, shining eyes held no glance of com- 
 prehension. A few minutes later they carried 
 the oblivious engineer through narrow pas- 
 sages to the tiny operating-room, where the 
 hospital apprentice, inwardly quaking under 
 the responsibility of assisting at a serious 
 operation, stood, flanked by sterilized in- 
 struments, dressings, and sponges, and the 
 ether which he was to administer. 
 
 The doctor adjusted the sterile dressings 
 and, fastening the abdominal binder, removed 
 the gauze pad from over his mouth. "That 
 is good work if I do say it myself!" he said; 
 "and not one second too soon. Some day, 
 when I have time, I'll write an article for 
 the medical journals on performing major 
 operations during a hurricane on the North 
 Sea." He glanced at the hospital apprentice
 
 In the Day's Work 17 
 
 approvingly. "You were wasting your time 
 at Harvard learning to be a lawyer ! You'd 
 make a first-class surgeon," he praised, and 
 his assistant flushed with pleasure as he turned 
 toward the sterilizer with a tray full of in- 
 struments. 
 
 The doctor helped straighten the cabin, 
 keeping a watchful eye on the still figure of 
 the engineer officer. "Better to keep him 
 right here. I can take care of him and regu- 
 late the temperature, too," he mused, and 
 added aloud: "I'll be glad to get him safely 
 ashore, though. A sea voyage may be good 
 for some sick people, but every rule has its ex- 
 ception. Now, lad, you'd better get to your 
 hammock. There'll be another day to-mor- 
 row and it's nearly here !" 
 
 "I couldn't go to sleep now," protested 
 the apprentice, turning the leaves of a med- 
 ical text-book. He mumbled over the words : 
 "Incision, superficial fascia external oblique 
 muscle internal oblique normal salt solu- 
 tions string suture catgut. Gracious ! Did 
 you do all those things to him?" questioned 
 the apprentice, busily informing himself on 
 appendicitis operations.
 
 i8 In the Day's Work 
 
 The doctor smiled. "All those !" he agreed. 
 
 The apprentice turned the pages. "Listen 
 to this!" he began, and read an account of 
 the decision by a doctor to let a deformed 
 and mentally deficient child die. "Caused a 
 lot of criticism/' commented the hospital 
 apprentice; "but I should think that any 
 sensible person would side with the physician 
 wouldn't you ?" 
 
 " No," answered the doctor grimly. " Every 
 human being should have his chance you 
 never can tell what may be waiting just around 
 the corner. Where would we end if every 
 surgeon had the right to decide who was 
 or wasn't entitled to go on living?" The 
 doctor laughed. "Most of our consciences 
 will warn us to avoid the operating-table 
 when those ideas go into effect," he com- 
 mented. 
 
 "Well, I don't know ' began the appren- 
 tice, and helped the doctor fix the blankets 
 around the engineer officer, who was begin- 
 ning to toss feebly about and mumble a few 
 disconnected words. " Piston furnace rods 
 bolts oil wrenches" passed haltingly in 
 review several times; twice, with growing
 
 In the Day's Work 19 
 
 distinctness, he spoke of the gauge. "Do- 
 your best boys !" urged the engineer officer 
 cheerily. 
 
 "Funny how the work aboard ship gets 
 into the marrow of a man's bones," whis- 
 pered the apprentice wonderingly; "even 
 ether won't drive it out !" 
 
 "It's all in the day's work," mumbled 
 the engineer. "Whatever happens, do 
 your best ! Then it won't be your fault. 
 It'll be all in the day's work!" The 
 words evidently appealed to him. "All in 
 the day's work," he whispered. 
 
 "Sometimes it's a long day," yawned the 
 doctor tiredly; then sought diversion in con- 
 versation. "What were you doing a year 
 ago to-night ?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, I can't remember exactly" said the 
 apprentice. "I had a crush on a girl whose 
 people have a nice old place at Dedham, and 
 I was out there most of the fall. She was a 
 pretty girl attractive, too; but the train 
 service to Dedham was poor, and after winter 
 closed in it grew so cold travelling back and 
 forth that I gave up going to see her. I was 
 awfully in love with that girl ! What was her
 
 20 In the Day's Work 
 
 name?" mused the hospital apprentice per- 
 plexedly. 
 
 The doctor smiled; this was what he had 
 hoped for. "Will you hunt her up again 
 after the war?" he asked with earnest solici- 
 tude. 
 
 The hospital apprentice eyed him bel- 
 ligerently. "With any kind of luck she'll 
 have grandchildren before this war is over," 
 he prophesied darkly. "I'll come home a 
 doddering, famous old gentleman whom she'll 
 be proud to have known. 'Have you for- 
 gotten how I loved you?' I'll quaver," en- 
 larged the apprentice, growing sorry for him- 
 self and his blighted happiness. 
 
 The doctor was not romantic. "Maybe 
 she'll have forgotten your name, too," he 
 suggested heartlessly. 
 
 The hospital apprentice lapsed into a wilted 
 silence. 
 
 The engineer officer was holding a heated, 
 if halting, technical conversation with his 
 engine-room assistant. "You're wrong about 
 that valve, Austin," he repeated monot- 
 onously. The doctor waited until he quieted 
 down.
 
 In the Day's Work 21 
 
 "How did you happen to apply for the 
 hospital corps?" he inquired, knowing from 
 experience that almost any topic could be 
 amusing when viewed through the appren- 
 tice's eyes. 
 
 "Process of elimination," answered the 
 boy. "My governor doesn't believe in en- 
 couraging idleness, so during each summer 
 vacation I take a shot at 'earning my salt/ 
 I've had a try at enough different kinds of 
 home diversions to know that I wasn't keen 
 to shovel, or oil, or scrub much; besides, I 
 like to save lives," asserted the apprentice 
 modestly. "I often think how I'd act on a 
 sinking ship. 'This way to life-boat No. n ! 
 Women and kids first ! Heave ho on the 
 line, my hearties !' " declaimed the apprentice 
 dramatically. 
 
 The doctor smiled, then stood up to hold 
 the blankets over the engineer officer. "Wish 
 he wouldn't toss around," he said. 
 
 The engineer opened his eyes and looked 
 vaguely about. "Mary?" he whispered, 
 and waited. "Mary!" called the engineer 
 officer, and lowered his voice. "Didn't 
 I tell you I'd be back?" he questioned.
 
 22 In the Day's Work 
 
 "I've come safely back to you Mary," 
 he affirmed. 
 
 Outside the wind had risen to a high, thin 
 shriek; the rain lashed across the port-holes 
 and contrasted strangely with the sunshiny 
 garden of dreams in which the sick man's 
 mind lingered. He spoke comfortingly. 
 
 "Yes Mary, dear we'll have iris and 
 lilacs, syringas and lilies," he promised 
 faintly. "A little house vines, and a 
 curving path a meadow with long shadows 
 on the grass and apple-blossoms!" His 
 voice changed to a low, accentless tone: 
 "Don't cry little wife this is what hap- 
 pens when a man goes down to the sea 
 in ships. The partings are cruelly hard." 
 
 He tossed feverishly. "Mary and the 
 baby!" said the engineer officer with clear 
 distinctness. 
 
 There was silence except for the roar of 
 the wind. 
 
 The engineer spoke again. "A fine, 
 generous young country America," he 
 whispered musingly; "not what our fore- 
 fathers intended perhaps but lovable ! 
 They forget so quickly Americans, because
 
 In the Day's Work 23 
 
 they're young," he explained, and went on : 
 "When the war is over we'll have the 
 little house blue smoke from the chimneys 
 across the winter sky jonquils, in spring 
 and birds, calling calling to Mary, and 
 the baby," asserted the engineer officer in 
 a wistful voice and looked fixedly at the doc- 
 tor. 
 
 The hospital apprentice tucked in a blanket 
 end. "Funny what they remember, isn't 
 it ? I wouldn't have guessed that he had an 
 ounce of sentiment " 
 
 The engineer officer was speaking; it was 
 the continuation, no doubt, of a conversation 
 ended weeks before. "Don't cry Mary," 
 he comforted. "Soon, perhaps I'll be back 
 and then we'll try to save toward getting 
 the little house." He wrinkled his forehead 
 in thoughtful perplexity. "I can't remember 
 how it goes but it's something about 
 there not being 'any more sea ! ' Don't 
 cry, Mary / promise you there shall not be 
 any more sea." 
 
 The doctor glanced toward the black circle 
 of the port-hole. "Guess there'll be a lot 
 of us who will have had enough sea by the
 
 24 In the Day's Work 
 
 time this cruise is over," he commented cheer- 
 fully. "I feel quite differently about the 
 emigration question since I've been intimately 
 acquainted with the climate over here. I 
 don't wonder they're all so keen about getting 
 'a place in the sun.' Even such a poor, half- 
 baked, watery sun as theirs is!" 
 
 The hospital apprentice grinned. " 'Damp- 
 ness is what makes the trees so green,' " he 
 quoted provocatively. 
 
 "Humph!" growled the doctor. 
 
 "What are they going to live on if any- 
 thing happens to me?" questioned the en- 
 gineer officer, so coherently that the appren- 
 tice jumped; the worried tone changed to 
 command: "Clean up that bright work," 
 he ordered; "what sort of showing will we 
 make at inspection with it that way?" 
 Suddenly his unrecognizing eyes filled with 
 tears. "/ can't die!" groaned the engineer. 
 "Can't you realize that there's nothing for 
 them to live on?" He paused and looked 
 vaguely about. "Where am I ?" he ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 "Try to lie still," suggested the doctor, 
 and shook his head at the unanswering stare.
 
 In the Day's Work 25 
 
 "He will be out from under the anaesthetic 
 in a few minutes," he said, and added : "Time 
 for you to turn in, young man." 
 
 The hospital apprentice yawned. "I am 
 getting sleepy," he admitted; "I'll go to 
 bed as soon as I've taken the temperature 
 of that fellow in the sick-bay." 
 
 The doctor nodded. "I don't think he has 
 anything but the beginning of a bad cold 
 and we've knocked that out but I don't like 
 to take chances," he said, pulling the blanket 
 up over the tossing figure on the table. 
 "Keep as quiet as you can!" he admonished 
 soothingly to unheeding ears. 
 
 The engineer officer was far away from 
 ships and storms and suffering. 
 
 "Apple-blossoms?" he suggested; "roses? 
 'Gather your rosebuds while you may/ 
 Time doesn't fly very swiftly nowadays, 
 does it, dear ? But nothing lasts forever ! 
 except love " whispered the engineer to a 
 woman who, leagues away, was filling the 
 aching loneliness of the long days with lovely 
 plans and dreams for the coming years. 
 
 "Teach the baby to Jbe like you. I 
 wouldn't ask anything better than that!"
 
 26 In the Day's Work 
 
 said the engineer gently. "And if I don't 
 come back you'll be thankful after the 
 first sorrow is over that I did my duty." 
 
 The doctor moved uneasily. "Feel as 
 though I were listening at a keyhole or read- 
 ing some one's letters," he growled. "I'll 
 be glad when he quits talking." 
 
 The hospital apprentice returned. "Nor- 
 mal," he reported, putting down the ther- 
 mometer; "he can go back to duty in the 
 morning. Anything else I can do ? What 
 an awful night!" he commented, as the ship 
 pitched into the trough of the sea. 
 
 "Yes," agreed the doctor; "when I write 
 my prescription for a cottage in the country 
 I'll omit the wind as well as the sea. Must 
 be fun to plan such things with your wife," 
 he mused. "In the navy you spend most of 
 your time planning for things you never get 
 a chance to do. But anticipation is free!" 
 He motioned toward the engineer. "He 
 doesn't think of the days when the cot- 
 tage roof will leak and the furnace go on a 
 strike." He paused and looked closely at his 
 patient. 
 
 " Hulloa, old man ! Feeling all shot to
 
 In the Day's Work 27 
 
 pieces at the hands of a trusted friend?" he 
 questioned clearly. 
 
 The engineer officer smiled. "Hulloa, doc ! 
 Is it over?" he whispered. 
 
 "It certainly is!" asserted the doctor. 
 "That appendix is now attached to one of 
 the swells of the sea and, judging from ap- 
 pearances, they're plenty strong enough to 
 stand it ! Now, if you'll lie still and take 
 things easy you'll be as fit as a fiddle in a 
 short time Great Scott!" ejaculated the 
 doctor as, with a deafening crash, the ship 
 keeled sharply on her side. 
 
 There was a rain of broken glass, instru- 
 ments, and hospital stores from the wall 
 cabinets; in an instant the small cabin was 
 littered with a chaotic mass of wreckage as 
 the doctor climbed painfully to his feet and 
 wiped the blood from a cut across his fore- 
 head out of his eyes. 
 
 The hospital apprentice, steadying an in- 
 jured arm, helped the doctor pull the en- 
 gineer's limp body back onto the table 
 then, turning, opened the door into the pas- 
 sageway and looked out. "Torpedoed!" 
 whispered the apprentice, with a little gasp.
 
 28 In the Day's Work 
 
 "The whole side's blown out we'll have to 
 hurry to get away." 
 
 The doctor eyed him quietly. "Get the 
 sailor in the sick-bay an overcoat and take 
 him up on deck with you," he advised, ad- 
 justing a small pillow under the engineer 
 officer's head. "And if you see the executive 
 ask what the chances are for getting him 
 away," he said, indicating the sick man. 
 
 "The executive's cabin was right above 
 where the torpedo hit. He's dead, prob- 
 ably!" said the apprentice as he disappeared 
 through the door. 
 
 From outside a terrific clamor had arisen; 
 there was the shrill sound of escaping steam, 
 the clatter of running feet, the clear call of 
 a bugle, the sharp, insistent snapping of 
 wrenched rivets and beams; and suddenly 
 there came the dull boom of an explosion. 
 
 11 What has happened?" whispered the en- 
 gineer officer vaguely. 
 
 "Nothing but what comes in the day's 
 work," the doctor assured him, and added: 
 "Will you lie perfectly still while I'm away 
 for a few seconds ?" 
 
 The engineer nodded. The doctor hurried
 
 In the Day's Work 29 
 
 into the passage and ran up the gangway- 
 ladder. Already the ship was listing; on 
 deck an officer and some sailors were working 
 at the lashings of the life-rafts. There was 
 little confusion or noise except where the 
 gunners were loading and firing the forward 
 guns at the unoffending waves, and a quarter- 
 master stolidly hoisted the distress signal 
 flags across the sloping yard-arm. 
 
 The doctor smiled grimly as he spelled out 
 the message. 
 
 Near by two overturned launches floated 
 on the towering waves; a dreary curtain of 
 mist shut down on any approaching help. 
 
 The doctor turned and went back to his 
 cabin; smiling, he bent over the engineer 
 officer. "I may need to do a little more to 
 your side, but first " He wrenched the 
 wardrobe door loose and slid it carefully 
 under the sick man. Deftly and swiftly he 
 wound long woollen bandages across the 
 engineer officer's body and around the door. 
 "I need a little more space for you," he ex- 
 plained. 
 
 The engineer watched him with puzzled 
 bewilderment.
 
 30 In the Day's Work 
 
 The door to the passageway swung sud- 
 denly open. "Are you going to drown down 
 here like a rat in a trap?" demanded the 
 hospital apprentice breathlessly from the 
 doorway. 
 
 The doctor eyed him with stern disap- 
 proval. "Don't speak to me like that," he 
 said. 
 
 The hospital apprentice laughed mirth- 
 lessly. "Discipline!" he ejaculated. "In 
 a few minutes there won't be any discipline 
 because there won't be any ship ! Come up 
 on deck where, at least, you'll have a fighting 
 chance." He lowered his voice. "The sub- 
 marine that got us came to the surface just 
 now!" 
 
 "Did they offer to rescue any one ?" ques- 
 tioned the doctor sharply as he carried the 
 ether nearer. 
 
 "No," answered the apprentice. "The 
 submarine's officers and crew laughed as 
 they saw our men trying to launch the ship's 
 boats and keep them afloat!" He hesitated, 
 and motioned toward the engineer. "You 
 can't save him! Come along!" he urged. 
 
 The doctor did not answer as he lowered
 
 Even as they turned, the ship, with a sharp upward swing of her stern, 
 lifted it high in the air then . . . plunged down through the icy 
 water.
 
 In the Day's Work 31 
 
 the ether cone and bent over his patient. 
 "Can you understand me?" he questioned. 
 
 "Yes," whispered the sick man. 
 
 "Then do as I tell you for Mary and the 
 baby !" commanded the doctor. 
 
 The engineer officer nodded faintly. 
 
 "Breathe deep! Breathe deep ! Breathe 
 deep ! That's fine ! Keep it up, old fellow," 
 ordered the doctor, and glanced up at the 
 appalled apprentice. 
 
 "I couldn't let a half-conscious man face 
 the horror of the next few minutes!" com- 
 mented the doctor. "Now, if he drowns, he 
 won't know anything about it. It's the best 
 I could do," explained the doctor humbly. 
 
 The ship, with a lurch, listed sharply to 
 starboard; a wave of icy water ran across 
 the deck. The doctor turned to the hospital 
 apprentice. 
 
 "Is your good arm strong enough to help 
 me get him up on deck?" he questioned 
 breathlessly. 
 
 The hospital apprentice nodded. Together 
 they hoisted the engineer up the gangway- 
 ladder; together shoved the door out over 
 the sloping side and watched it float away
 
 32 In the Day's Work 
 
 with its unconscious burden on the crest of 
 a great wave; then, steadying themselves, 
 looked for a loose spar or life-preserver. 
 
 Even as they turned, the ship, with a sharp 
 upward swing of her stern, lifted it high in 
 the air then, like a great stone, plunged 
 down through the icy water. 
 
 But the engineer officer, struggling slowly 
 back to health in an English hospital, will 
 never again during his lifetime hear the wind 
 blow and the rain beat against the window 
 without feeling a helpless sense of agonized 
 humbleness deeper and keener than pain.
 
 II 
 
 THE ADMIRAL'S BIRTHDAY 
 
 ALTHOUGH it was a half-hour later than 
 his usual breakfast-time, the admiral seemed 
 in no hurry to leave the table. Idly his glance 
 went from the large steel-and-glass case hold- 
 ing the silver service, presented by the ship's 
 name-State, to the unnatural orderliness of 
 the steel desk and the bare leather cushions 
 on the steel sofa. 
 
 Outside, the bugler trailed by in the wake 
 of the band; they had just finished playing 
 the national anthem as the colors were hoisted, 
 and a thrush, in a tasselled Chinese cage by 
 the cabin port-hole, sang defiantly back. 
 The admiral got up and looked thoughtfully 
 at the bird. 
 
 "I never could get on happily aboard ship 
 without a pet," he mused, and glanced toward 
 the near-by shore. Fingering the catch, he 
 unhooked and opened the little door. 
 
 "I can't carry a bird-cage about with me! 
 
 33
 
 34 The Admiral's Birthday 
 
 I'd give you a dot if I knew how, Dick, but 
 you haven't been in captivity long enough to 
 have forgotten all your old ways," he said. 
 
 The thrush hopped to the opening, balanced 
 a moment there, and went back into the cage, 
 peering with questioning, beadlike eyes at 
 his friend. 
 
 "It's all right, Dick," said the admiral, 
 and turned away. "After forty-six years in 
 the navy, I won't know what to do with my 
 liberty either," he mused, walking aimlessly 
 about the cabin. Before a small cabinet he 
 stopped and opened the glass door with a 
 key on his key-ring. Lifting the contents 
 out, he put them one by one on the table. 
 Valueless objects they were souvenirs of 
 sport or achievement, of folly or tragedy; 
 useless as the garbled gleanings from a small 
 boy's pocket; but cherished from association, 
 and interesting to the initiated because of 
 the glistening thread of adventure brightening 
 all the intricately woven fabric that is life. 
 
 First came a photograph of a group of 
 men on the deck of an ice-bound ship. The 
 admiral examined it gravely. "My mid- 
 shipman's cruise three years' surveying duty
 
 The Admiral's Birthday 35 
 
 around northern Alaska, in the old Patterson 
 and we all wore side-whiskers," he com- 
 mented, and smiled. His wife had often re- 
 marked that if she had seen that photograph 
 when she was engaged she would never have 
 had the courage to marry him, for fear, in 
 some misguided moment, he might be tempted 
 to raise side-whiskers again. 
 
 Next he took out a string of fragile, iri- 
 descent shells. Before him Samoa gleamed 
 in the sunshine serene and golden; sweet 
 with jessamine, colorful with Bougainvillea, 
 with palm-trees moving in the trade-wind; 
 while above the thatched roofs of the native 
 huts the blue smoke of wood fires rose in 
 the clear air; and at night the moonlight 
 made a radiant pathway across the dark 
 lagoons. 
 
 A small square box lined with imperial 
 yellow satin and containing a tiny silver sake 
 cup incised with a crude plum-blossom came 
 next. The admiral's face was stern as he 
 remembered the last Korean king and his 
 pleasant, courteous speech when he pre- 
 sented the little bowls as dinner souvenirs 
 to the visiting American officers. " * Uneasy
 
 36 The Admiral's Birthday 
 
 lies the head that wears a crown !' His wasn't 
 uneasy for very long after that," commented 
 the admiral dryly, and picked up a Hawaiian 
 coin. 
 
 "Won it at poker . . . from Kalakaua ! 
 Always had to remind him 'ante up, king!' 
 Those were the days!" smiled the admiral 
 whimsically. 
 
 Then followed numerous mementos, con- 
 juring up the memory of adventures on all 
 the seven seas: a flint weather-charm that 
 had guided the way through a blinding snow- 
 storm in the devious Straits of Magellan; a 
 long nail, bent into corkscrew-like spirals, told 
 of a typhoon, with death and destruction in 
 its wake, swooping across the Indian Ocean, 
 when the ship had trembled like an exhausted 
 horse; a primitive barbed and feathered 
 hook recalled an interrupted fishing expedi- 
 tion off Herschel's Island, where the sudden 
 hurricane had caught and nearly overpowered 
 the small boat among mountainous waves, 
 and the sea-birds, wild with fright, had driven 
 helplessly down the icy wind. 
 
 A small stone Kwanyin brought memories 
 of gunboat days and the stupendous love-
 
 The Admiral's Birthday 37 
 
 liness of the Yangtze valley. A piece of crude, 
 mortuary, Ainu pottery told of a dangerous 
 amateur excavating expedition under drifting 
 cherry-blossom petals in northern Japan. 
 
 A thin scarlet card was the reminder of 
 a presentation to the Dowager Empress in 
 the Forbidden City when that dominant 
 lady had led the silent young Emperor about 
 by the hand as though he were a bashful 
 schoolboy. 
 
 A poisoned arrow-head told of uneasy days 
 in the southern Philippines, where a molten, 
 copper sun came up from behind the flaming 
 fire-trees and showed the dense, tangled un- 
 derbrush through which the Moro warriors 
 crawled undetected to the water's edge. And 
 at night, through the hot, muffling darkness, 
 sounded the wistful, solitary piping of a reed 
 flute. Blown by whom ? And why ? 
 
 Of a two years' tour of shore duty in Guam 
 there was no souvenir, nor was one necessary. 
 In the cemetery at remote Agafia was the 
 grave of the admiral's only child . . . the 
 wee daughter, whose tiny feet pattering un- 
 evenly on their short earthly pilgrimage still 
 echoed across his heart and tightened his
 
 38 The Admiral's Birthday 
 
 throat in a bitter memory of the futility of 
 all available human skill. "If we had been 
 where experienced doctors and specialists 
 could have been called . . . ?" his sick spirit 
 reiterated, unsolaced by time's effacing touch. 
 
 Leisurely the admiral cleared the cabinet 
 and stood looking silently at his trophies. 
 Turning, he rang for his mess-attendant. 
 "You can pack these, Pedro; they're the last 
 things, I think," he said. 
 
 Through the open port-hole a boyish voice 
 sounded clearly: "I don't know what to say! 
 You can't congratulate an officer on reaching 
 a birthday that puts him on the shelf . . . 
 cuts him away, clean and sharp, from the 
 work of a lifetime . . . ," the voice trailed 
 off. A knock sounded. 
 
 "Come in," called the admiral. 
 
 The ship's junior officers stood in the door- 
 way, and a pleasant-faced ensign stepped 
 forward. "Many happy birthdays to you, 
 sir," he said shyly; "we knew we wouldn't 
 get a chance later, so we came to tell you 
 what an honor we consider it to have served 
 on your flag-ship and how sorry we are that 
 you are going to leave," he added.
 
 The Admiral's Birthday 39 
 
 The admiral's face brightened. "This is 
 thoughtful of you," he said, realizing the 
 good-will behind their reticence. "The time 
 comes to all of us ... when we are towed 
 into some landlocked backwater . . . and left 
 there. It has to be to make promotion." 
 
 The ensign spoke again. "We'd just as 
 soon not be promoted if it means your going, 
 sir," he said quickly, and the others mur- 
 mured their agreement. 
 
 The admiral was pleased. "I'll be glad to 
 remember that ! And don't forget that I'll 
 be watching your careers with interest," he 
 said. 
 
 Pedro appeared at the stateroom door. 
 "What uniform will you wear, sir ?" he asked. 
 
 "Dress, with epaulets, cocked hat, sword, 
 and white gloves," answered the admiral. 
 
 The junior officers left. The admiral went 
 into his stateroom; for the last time he put 
 on his uniform, buckled his sword-belt, took 
 up his gloves, and went back into the cabin, 
 where his aide and the captain of the ship 
 were waiting for him. From outside the 
 measured tramp of a thousand pairs of feet 
 told that the crew were assembling on deck.
 
 40 The Admiral's Birthday 
 
 A bugle sounded clear and high above the 
 shrill crescendo of the boatswain's mate pip- 
 ing quarters. 
 
 The admiral, the captain, and the aide 
 eyed each other with the inarticulate speech- 
 lessness of those who go down to the sea in 
 ships, and each found comfort in the other's 
 very apparent misery. 
 
 The admiral cleared his throat. "I've 
 left everything in order, I think," he said; 
 "you can turn those reports over to my re- 
 lief . . . and the yeoman has typewritten 
 copies of all letters. Come in!" he called. 
 
 "Officers and men up and aft, sir," an- 
 nounced the executive officer from the door- 
 way. 
 
 The admiral buttoned his gloves, took up 
 the envelope containing his orders, and, fol- 
 lowed by the captain and aide, walked to 
 the door. In the opening he paused a second 
 for a glimpse of the last ceremonial of his 
 long career . . . trying to print ineffaceably 
 on his memory the scene before him. 
 
 On one side of the wide deck the marines 
 curved in long khaki-colored lines; on the 
 other side the sailors massed in a great blur
 
 The Admiral's Birthday 41 
 
 of blue and white. Across the deck a row of 
 officers, junior officers, and petty officers 
 added the glint of brass buttons and gold 
 braid. The gun's crew stood ready at their 
 posts and, by the after-mast, a quartermaster 
 held the halyards of the blue, two-starred 
 admiral's flag in his hand. A curious stillness 
 rested over the scene, broken, as the admiral 
 stepped forward, by the bugle-call of "at- 
 tention," and the officer of the deck's com- 
 mand: "Salute!" 
 
 The admiral returned the salute and walked 
 across the deck to where the Stars and Stripes 
 whipped sharply in the breeze and the shadow 
 of the flag flickered across the white planking. 
 Against the background of this symbol to 
 which he had dedicated a lifetime of clean, 
 arduous service, he stood facing the crew of 
 his last command and unfolded his orders. 
 His voice was clear and even: 
 
 "Office of the Secretary of the Navy, 
 
 Navy Department, 
 {t ~ WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 "On October 20, 1917, you will have attained the 
 age of sixty-four (64) years, and will be transferred 
 to the Retired List of Officers of the Navy, from that
 
 42 The Admiral's Birthday 
 
 date, in accordance with the provisions of Section 1444 
 of the Revised Statutes. 
 
 "On that date you will haul down your flag on board 
 the U. S. S. Idaho; will regard yourself as detached 
 from duty; will proceed to your home. 
 
 "(Signed) SECRETARY OF THE NAVY," 
 
 read the admiral. 
 
 With the last word for a signal, the bat- 
 tery rang out in a salute of seventeen guns, 
 and from the masthead the square flag started 
 slowly on its downward journey. The ad- 
 miral watched it with steady eyes; only the 
 hand holding the folded orders trembled a 
 little as the slackened rope ceased moving 
 and the flag his flag dropped to the quar- 
 termaster's grasp. 
 
 Through the long lines of saluting officers, 
 sailors, and marines he walked back to his 
 cabin and disappeared through the narrow 
 door, and, as he changed his uniform for 
 civilian's clothes, he heard the tramp of the 
 crew, the boastful call of the bugles, the shrill 
 crescendo of the boatswain's mate's pipe, the 
 commands of officers, and as eight bells 
 sounded the band fared breezily into the open- 
 ing bars of an antiquated comic-opera song.
 
 The Admiral's Birthday 43 
 
 All the intimate, cheerful, unnoticed, every- 
 day sights and sounds loomed large with in- 
 tolerable loss as the admiral clumsily tied 
 his detested necktie with groping, unaccus- 
 tomed fingers. . . . 
 
 In the cabin his servants waited in a for- 
 lorn group to say good-by. He brushed aside 
 a brusque wish to have the whole business 
 hurried through, and responded with his 
 habitual kindliness; then rang the bell. 
 
 "Have my launch got ready to take me 
 ashore," he told the orderly. 
 
 "Your launch is at the gangway, sir," the 
 answer came back. 
 
 The admiral hardly noticed the bustle out- 
 side as he turned and looked about the silent 
 cabin, with its bare desk and table, to where, 
 by the port-hole, the empty tasselled Chinese 
 cage swung slowly in the offshore wind. 
 
 Blindly he walked away and passed out 
 of the cabin door. Across the deck the ship's 
 officers waited, feigning a cheerfulness they 
 did not feel. The air was full of their volubly 
 reiterated good wishes, but several faces 
 were missing. 
 
 The admiral hesitated. "Chalmers? Mor-
 
 44 The Admiral's Birthday 
 
 ton ? Rees ?" he inquired as he went toward 
 the gangway ladder. One glance at the wait- 
 ing barge answered his question. A pulling- 
 boat, manned by officers, waited to take him 
 ashore, and as he climbed to his seat in the 
 stern the sailors, heedless of half-appeased 
 appetites, gathered on the forecastle and in 
 the starboard gangway and cheered until the 
 echoes answered back the admiral's name. 
 And when the pulling-boat had landed him, 
 and the last good-by was spoken, he stood, 
 a solitary figure on the dock end, and looked 
 at the receding boat-load of officers and the 
 gray ship, with her grim, bristling guns, lift- 
 ing her lacelike cage masts across the blue 
 sky as she rode easily between her anchor 
 chains. 
 
 A fine ship, the flag-ship ! His, no more. 
 
 At the hotel his wife, awaiting him, felt 
 the sharp sting of tears as she noted the for- 
 lorn droop of his shoulders, but she smiled 
 as he saluted her deferentially. "I have to 
 report that I am permanently at your ser- 
 vice," he said with impressive formality. 
 
 :< Thank goodness you've come, John !" 
 she said briskly. "I want you to go to the
 
 The air was full of their volubly reiterated good wishes.
 
 The Admiral's Birthday 45 
 
 Pullman office and make a reservation on 
 this evening's train while I telegraph Marian. 
 I couldn't make any final arrangements, be- 
 cause I didn't know when you would get 
 back. And will you get some one to fix the 
 lock on my brown trunk ? You'll have to 
 hurry!" she added energetically. 
 
 The admiral gasped. "Reservations for 
 where ?" he asked. 
 
 "Silver City, of course ! That's the nearest 
 station to the Cliffords' ranch. They have 
 a lovely young horse for you to train one 
 that no one has ever tried to ride on before. 
 Marian says she'll guarantee that animal to 
 distract your mind from your . . . she says 
 you'll have to keep your mind on the horse. 
 They have a wonderful ranch with all sorts 
 of wild animals, you know." 
 
 "I rather wanted to stay around here 
 until the ship left," ventured the admiral, but 
 his smile deepened. "I've weathered a good 
 deal ... to finally end my career on a buck- 
 ing bronco ! Couldn't Marian and you have 
 picked out a less strenuous counter-irritant 
 for me ? Why, Caroline !" 
 
 The admiral's wife was crying quietly.
 
 46 The Admiral's Birthday 
 
 "I won't have you wandering around the 
 pier, looking like a lost soul and grieving 
 about that ship," she sobbed. "I'm sorry 
 you feel badly about it but oh ! how glad 
 and thankful I am that at last you've come 
 home!" said the admiral's wife.
 
 Ill 
 
 BETWEEN THE TREATY PORTS 
 
 I NEVER see my waitress spreading the em- 
 broidered cloth I bought in Hong-Kong but 
 the whole occurrence comes back to me, to- 
 gether with the remembrance of the sights 
 and sounds of that hot May day. 
 
 The table-cloth folded into a neat bundle 
 was under my arm as I stepped from the 
 cool embroidery-shop into the blinding glare 
 of Queen's Road. My head ached and I 
 would never have joined the crowd gathered 
 about some itinerant jugglers if it had not 
 been for a charmingly dressed woman, ac- 
 companied by a Chinese servant, who stood 
 watching them. 
 
 After fifteen months of following my hus- 
 band's ship up and down the Asiatic station, 
 my wardrobe had reached the state where it 
 was wise, when possible, to ignore it; and 
 the sight of such a dress as that woman wore 
 was, at first, more of an attraction than the 
 
 47
 
 48 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 juggling. And, upon closer inspection, I de- 
 cided that she justified the gown, for she was 
 very lovely. 
 
 She hesitated, then smiling back at me 
 motioned toward the jugglers. "The cleverest 
 I've ever seen they're really worth watch- 
 ing," she said. 
 
 They were. Soon I was completely en- 
 grossed by their remarkable achievements. 
 
 A rose-tree sprouted, grew, and blossomed 
 in the middle of the street. A stork emerged 
 from an egg, flourished, and flew away. The 
 basket trick held us loitering ricksha coolies, 
 Englishmen, Chinese gentlemen, and a few 
 women absorbed in the glaring noonday 
 sunshine, while my new acquaintance and I 
 admired and wondered and her Chinese ser- 
 vant watched us with black, unblinking eyes. 
 
 There came a pause. The older juggler 
 passed a small basket among his audience 
 and, dissatisfied, handed it round a second 
 time. The money was counted and divided. 
 
 I remembered my headache and thought 
 of the cool hotel. "They seem to have fin- 
 ished," I said. 
 
 "No," she answered, "I rather think the
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 49 
 
 best is coming. They're passing that basket 
 again ! I'll give them enough to hurry them." 
 
 She dropped a bill into the juggler's hand, 
 and spoke sharply to him in Chinese. 
 
 "How splendid to be able to speak this 
 difficult language!" I said admiringly. 
 
 She smiled. "It's easy to pick up when 
 you don't hear anything else for months at 
 a time," she answered, and added: '" You're 
 an American, aren't you ?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "I haven't spoken to an American woman 
 in years," she commented, and to my ex- 
 clamation, "But you're an American, too!" 
 she gave an unwilling "Yes." 
 
 "Look!" she cried hastily; "I thought so! 
 They are going to do the rope trick." 
 
 I gasped. Already the two men were above 
 our heads, climbing, hand over hand, up the 
 rope that they had thrown into the air where, 
 straight and taut, it stretched above them. 
 Steadily they ascended, their arms and legs 
 moving with automatic regularity; soon they 
 were noticeably smaller, as on and on they 
 went, up and up, higher and higher, then 
 paused and stopped.
 
 So Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 Far above us they hung motionless for a 
 perceptible time, looking down with un- 
 wavering scrutiny on the crowd below; then 
 upward again, until they dwindled to tiny 
 dots and disappeared. 
 
 I moved my head stiffly about to ease the 
 cramp in my neck. 
 
 " I can hear myself trying to explain this," 
 I commented. "Every one will say that we 
 were hypnotized. I've heard of this trick and 
 how a photograph only shows a blank place 
 where the jugglers should be." 
 
 "Can a hypnotized person take reliable 
 photographs?" she asked, and turned to the 
 servant. "You hypnotized, Et-san?" she 
 questioned. 
 
 The servant shook her head, her eyes on 
 my face. 
 
 "I wonder what they saw when they 
 stopped and looked back," mused the mis- 
 tress. 
 
 "Maybe they were wondering if we had 
 enough money left to make a return trip 
 profitable," I ventured flippantly. 
 
 She did not seem to hear me. 
 
 "I've often thought how fine it would
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 51 
 
 be to get high enough above the fret and 
 muddle of every-day living and see what 
 really is large," said the woman, while bitter- 
 ness grew in her quiet voice. 
 
 The crowd had melted away; we stood 
 alone beside the narrow street, and I was 
 conscious that looking up toward the sun 
 was not a cure for headache. The hotel 
 seemed far away. 
 
 "I must go," I said, motioning to a ricksha 
 coolie. "Til see you again," I called back. 
 
 She smiled and nodded. Then, to my 
 amazement, the Chinese servant spoke. 
 
 "Ye-es. Ple-ase! Goo-by," she cried, as 
 I rode away. 
 
 Late that afternoon I, half-awakened from 
 the deep sleep induced by the remedies that 
 had routed my headache, lay stupidly lis- 
 tening to a partially comprehended murmur 
 of voices from the screened porch almost out- 
 side my window; the big suite, next to my 
 room, had evidently just been taken. 
 
 A woman's voice sounded. "I've gone 
 over and over this, Jim," she said with a 
 tired sigh. "You know that I love you, and
 
 52 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 that this separation will be almost more than 
 I can bear. I dare not think of the days ahead 
 for fear I won't have the courage to let you 
 go. But you've been out here for two years, 
 seeing nothing but frumpy women of course, 
 I seem attractive compared with them ! 
 
 :f Things in England may have changed 
 go home and see ! If, after you've seen, 
 you cable for me, I'll go to you the happiest 
 woman in the world. But I don't want hap- 
 piness that doesn't belong to me fairly." 
 
 She paused; and, as no answer came, went 
 
 on. 
 
 M 
 
 I believe you love me, and that our sepa- 
 ration will be a short one/' she said gently; 
 "but when you tell me that we can be married 
 in Yokohama, and that no one in England 
 will ever question who I was if I hail from 
 a remote enough place in America I know 
 better and so do you ! 
 
 "Some one from San Francisco would 
 meet me again. First, there would be a 
 whisper; then people would stop seeing us 
 and asking us to parties, and would forget 
 to call. Then, if we stood our punishment 
 meekly for two or three years, and behaved
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 53 
 
 in a chastened way, your relatives would 
 invite us to small dinners with carefully se- 
 lected guests who 'wouldn't mind meeting us ' ! 
 
 "Could you stand those probationary 
 years alone with me ? 
 
 "You've never been cut or had to take 
 second place and you'd hate and resent 
 it. I want to trust you, Jim, but I know how 
 changeable you are ! 
 
 "At first you'd be defiant and independent 
 but after a while you'd begin to think that 
 all your life the things you have longed 
 for during your stay out here was spoiled 
 because of me. And when people asked you, 
 without me, you'd go ! 
 
 "You needn't get angry. You have too 
 much money too great a position for 
 women not to run after you. The world is 
 full of women who are fearfully agile in a 
 case like ours" 
 
 A man's voice, sharp with exasperation, 
 answered : " By Jove ! if any one had told 
 me that I'd not only ask, but beg, a woman 
 to marry me a woman who had a woman 
 I didn't have to well ! a woman who lived 
 by her wits in a Chinese city, I'd jolly well
 
 54 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 have smashed their head," he said. "Here 
 I offer you everything. I care enough for 
 you that I can't help offering them. What 
 do you want, anyhow ? 
 
 ''You'd love the English places, Maizie! 
 Big houses, sloping lawns, great trees, and 
 the old flower-gardens a blaze of color 
 against the walls and hedges." 
 
 She interrupted him sharply. 
 
 " Yes, and when our great-grandson showed 
 visitors around the picture-gallery he'd get 
 them past my portrait as quickly as possible ! 
 Can't you see him?" Her voice rose. "I 
 won't spoil your beautiful future, Jim ! I 
 can bear staying here until you really know 
 your mind; but if I went with you now, and 
 you tired of me, and filled your life with things 
 that left me out, and stopped caring for 
 me " 
 
 His voice was sulky. "I won't admit that 
 I could stop caring for you. I've tried hard 
 enough ! For days after you told me that 
 you'd lived with a Chinaman I swore I'd 
 never see you again. But I can't help my- 
 self and if I should ? You'd have three 
 topping houses, and position and money "
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 55 
 
 "My house and position here suit me," 
 said the woman dryly. "As for money I 
 have more than I can possibly spend. Look 
 at my pearls these are only part of them ! 
 My clothes come from Paris; my bronzes, 
 paintings, and porcelains are finer than the 
 viceroy's; and the money that bought them 
 I made by my own efforts." 
 
 "Yes but how?" he muttered. 
 
 "Honestly!" she answered with sharp de- 
 fiance. "No one has ever tried to say that 
 I wasn't honest. And I can't begin to spend 
 all I earn it rolls in !" 
 
 "You talk like an idiot," said the man 
 roughly. "Either you can't or won't under- 
 stand what I'm offering you. If I'm willing 
 to take my chances with the future, you 
 ought to be." 
 
 His voice changed. "Be reasonable, 
 Maizie ! I can't understand you, but I know 
 that you're too fine to be hurt by apparent 
 circumstances here. I love you because of 
 qualities I realize you have and can't de- 
 scribe. If you only knew how I've pictured 
 you in my house and coming along the 
 garden walks. I'm thankful that my term
 
 56 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 of duty here is over so that I can take you 
 away." 
 
 There was a sound of muffled sobbing. 
 
 "Don't cry, Maizie. This time to-morrow 
 we'll have sailed. Et-san can send your things 
 after you. We'll wait for them in Japan and 
 go home by the Trans-Siberian," he said. 
 
 "No," answered the woman unevenly; 
 "don't try to make me change my mind. 
 But if you send for me I'll come." 
 
 "You'll never get the chance," said the 
 man with grim emphasis. "Why do you 
 want to stay behind ? Is there some one 
 else here? I might have guessed it!" he 
 added with sudden suspicion. 
 
 She answered with spirit, "You know that's 
 not true!" while exasperation grew in her 
 voice. "Can't you understand what I'm 
 trying to save you from ? Go back among 
 your own people your mother, your sisters 
 get a perspective on me, on my life; then, 
 if you still love me, say so." 
 
 The man's voice was ugly with jealousy. 
 
 "Of course there's some one else! I've 
 been a fool," he said. 
 
 "Don't, Jim," pleaded the woman. "I'm
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 57 
 
 trying to do right by you to the best of 
 my judgment " Her voice broke in a sob. 
 "If I only knew! To-day on Queen's Road 
 I saw some jugglers do the rope trick. When 
 they were high in the air they stopped and 
 looked back at us, and I wished with all my 
 heart that I could get far enough away from 
 the muddle of my life to see what is really 
 large. I've made so many mistakes. I've 
 been so bitterly unhappy. Your home, the 
 peace and security of the life you offer me, 
 seem like heaven ! But they must be heaven 
 for you, too. I must be sure ! What was 
 that ?" she whispered. 
 
 "Some one in the next room," answered 
 the man coldly, as I, aghast at my eaves- 
 dropping, hastily pulled down the window. 
 
 The Asiatic squadron cruised unapproach- 
 ably along the Korean coast that summer, 
 while I, not being able to follow them, spent 
 the hot weather in the mountains of Japan. 
 October found me in Hong-Kong again en 
 route for the Philippines, where the battle- 
 cruisers were already engaged in the autumn 
 target-practice.
 
 58 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 "There won't be a passenger-steamer to 
 Manila for six days," the agent told me, and, 
 the thirst for Oriental sightseeing still waxing 
 strong, I left directions for my mail to be 
 forwarded in care of the American consul and 
 went up the river to "see Canton." 
 
 "What are the most typical Chinese 
 sights ?" I asked the consul when I went 
 for my letters. 
 
 He suggested various temples and the 
 nine-storied pagoda. 
 
 "This isn't my first native city. I spent 
 last spring in the Yangtze valley," I reminded 
 him. 
 
 "The feather-jewelry makers," volunteered 
 the consul, mentally searching for novelties. 
 
 "I want to see a collection of porcelains, 
 or an old garden, or an official's yamen," I 
 admitted modestly. 
 
 The consul ran his hand through his hair. 
 "The sophisticated tourist heaven help 
 me!" he said, and hesitated. "I don't know 
 why not now," he mused. 
 
 "How would you like to see an A-number- 
 one gambling-house that is a palace?" he 
 asked.
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 59 
 
 "Why yes," I agreed, without enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 The consul was nettled. "Hundreds of 
 people would jump at the chance," he said 
 shortly. "If you had come a month earlier 
 or later you couldn't get in for love or 
 money, and neither could I ! No foreigner 
 was welcome, but Americans were absolutely 
 debarred. There's been a murder there; 
 I have to go officially to inventory some 
 things and to question the servants again." 
 
 "Why didn't they want Americans?" I 
 asked with resentment. 
 
 The consul shook his head. "I never 
 knew," he said. "I tried going there when 
 I first came here took a party of tourists 
 one afternoon Americans of importance they 
 were. Well, say ! It wasn't necessary to 
 order us out; those people fairly fell over 
 each other getting away, and the principal 
 tourist said he wouldn't have gone for a thou- 
 sand dollars if he'd known ! He seemed 
 pretty upset and inclined to be snappy," 
 commented the consul. 
 
 " Didn't you tell them that they were going 
 to a gambling-house ? Perhaps it recalled
 
 60 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 unpleasant experiences at home; I've read 
 of several voluntarily nomadic careers caused 
 by the investigators," I said, smothering a 
 yawn. 
 
 "Maybe so," ruminated the consul dubi- 
 ously. 
 
 "Anyhow, unless I can get a clew or pick 
 a flaw in one of the servant's stories, I'll have 
 to turn the place over to the old woman men- 
 tioned in the will. The interpreter and I 
 are going there now; you can come if you 
 like. The place is worth seeing," added the 
 consul. 
 
 Conversation between ricksha passengers 
 in a crowded Chinese city is impossible, so 
 I succumbed uninterruptedly to the fascina- 
 tions of color, outline, and sound as we jogged 
 along the narrow streets with their enticing 
 open shops and swinging, vivid, scarlet and 
 gold sign-boards, or passed the incense- 
 haunted stones of temple compounds, over 
 which the great bell's reverberations echoed 
 ceaselessly; but I evidently showed my dis- 
 appointment when we drew up before a 
 narrow door in the long blank wall. 
 
 The consul laughed. "Don't judge a
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 61 
 
 Chinese palace by the hole that you get into 
 it by," he advised, and knocked with vigor. 
 
 The gate opened silently and closed with 
 uncanny quickness behind us. Ahead a 
 white, marble-paved courtyard ended in the 
 vermilion lacquer of a great door. Above 
 rose a confusion of massive, curving eaves, 
 on which bronze dragons writhed and twisted. 
 Only the shrieks of coolies and venders in 
 the street outside echoed across the brooding 
 stillness and stirred the glossy leaves of the 
 tall, blossoming gardenia hedges, while from 
 his perch by the steps a gaudy tethered 
 macaw blinked solemnly in the heavy sun- 
 shine. 
 
 "Oh!" I cried with fervor. "I wouldn't 
 have missed this for anything." 
 
 The lacquered door swung ponderously 
 back; several servants appeared. We went 
 down a wide hallway paved with marble to 
 where a heavy carved screen shielded a door- 
 way. The consul spoke to an official stationed 
 there and beckoned us into the great apart- 
 ment beyond. 
 
 "Alice same-ee gammel-ing-room," an- 
 nounced the interpreter.
 
 62 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 "How beautiful !" I cried with enthusiasm. 
 
 The room was panelled in soft fawn-colored 
 wood that shone like dull velvet between 
 brocade-mounted paintings by masters of 
 the T'ang and Sung dynasties. Bronze in- 
 cense-burners and sacrificial wine-jugs alter- 
 nated with monochrome bowls on the old 
 lacquered chests and cabinets. Long strips 
 of mellow embroideries framed the windows 
 and repeated the color of the great sheaves 
 of lemon lilies and feathery eremurus massed 
 in high jars on the wide sills. Only the long, 
 bare teakwood table made a discordant note. 
 
 The consul nodded. :< You'd know that 
 a person who could own and run a place like 
 this would be a mark for some one ! One 
 of the servants must have done it, but I can't 
 catch them in a single misstatement. The 
 interpreter will question them again to-day. 
 And we have to verify the list of these 
 antiques they are willed to a man in Eng- 
 land. Do you want to walk through the 
 place while we are busy ? And if you see an 
 old Chinese woman servant ask her a few 
 questions. She's the one to whom the place 
 is left and I think she's the guilty person !
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 63 
 
 She looks it but sticks to her story," com- 
 plained the consul. 
 
 I hesitated. "You spoke of a murder. 
 Where is the body?" I asked. 
 
 "Buried two weeks ago," stated the con- 
 sul, and turned to the interpreter. 
 
 Like all old Chinese palaces this was on 
 one floor; behind the large room smaller 
 rooms, furnished with magnificent antiques, 
 large bare tables, and heavy chairs, opened 
 on a long, wide hall that ended at a massive 
 door hinged and studded with copper. It 
 was locked. 
 
 I knocked, waited, and knocked again, 
 feeling all the time that some one, unseen, 
 was watching me. Then came a little sharp 
 whisper of surprise and the sound of a heavy 
 bolt being slipped back. The door opened 
 and a Chinese woman stood against the light 
 from windows beyond. 
 
 I felt abashed and apologetic. "I'm so 
 interested may I see these rooms ?" I fal- 
 tered. 
 
 The woman nodded, and stood aside to 
 let me through the nearest door into a small 
 library furnished with simple chintz-covered
 
 64 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 furniture. Around the walls the book-filled 
 shelves rose to the ceiling, and the overflow 
 was piled on desk and tables. Psychologists, 
 philosophers, realists peopling an entire 
 world of books. And all in English! 
 
 The dining-room came next; then a tiny 
 bedroom, bare as a cell, with its clean, painted 
 walls and floor. 
 
 The Chinese woman had followed me and, 
 as I looked up from the puzzling effort of 
 forming a mental picture of the dead owner 
 of this amazing house, I found her black, 
 unwavering eyes fixed on my face. 
 
 Where had I seen her before ? 
 
 As if in reply to my unspoken question 
 she opened the door of a closet behind her 
 and beckoned to me. I followed her, and 
 there, first in the orderly row of garments, 
 hung the lovely, unforgotten gray dress of 
 my admiration on that May day in Hong- 
 Kong ! 
 
 "Why, yes!" I cried. "And you your 
 name is Et-san ! I remember, because it 
 was the first Chinese woman's name that I 
 had ever heard ! And your mistress where 
 is she?"
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 65 
 
 For answer she hid her face against her 
 arm, while the difficult tears of an tmweeping 
 race stained the sleeve of her blue linen coat. 
 
 The consul's voice sounded in the distance. 
 
 "There really isn't much that / can do," 
 he complained in loud discontent. 
 
 Quickly the Chinese woman lowered her 
 arm and, turning, opened a narrow drawer. 
 From beneath the neat piles of gloves she 
 took a small book, bound in limp leather, 
 and put it into my hand. 
 
 "You take keep allee time," she whis- 
 pered. "My missee talk and laugh with 
 you! Very lone-lee and sad my missee. 
 You keep!" 
 
 The book was under my arm when the 
 consul came into the room and glanced at 
 the open door. 
 
 "Now isn't that like a woman ! Comes to 
 see a Chinese palace and ends up at a closet 
 full of French dresses," he said with disgust, 
 and turned to the servant. 
 
 "I'll never believe you hadn't a hand in 
 this murder but I can't prove it," he said 
 severely. 
 
 She did not answer.
 
 66 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 "I suppose the steward and you will try 
 to go on running this establishment juggle 
 it around between you ?" asked the consul. 
 
 She gave me a startled glance. "I no 
 can juggle," she answered sharply. Then, 
 as we turned and passed out, she bowed, her 
 eyes, heavy with tears, fixed on my face. 
 "Goo-by," said Et-san, with a little sob. 
 
 Hardly waiting for the door to be closed 
 behind us, I faced the consul and voiced my 
 bewilderment. 
 
 "You said that this was a Chinese gam- 
 bling-house what is the American woman 
 who wears those dresses doing here?" I de- 
 manded. 
 
 The consul seemed surprised. "Doing 
 here? Nothing at present!" he answered 
 with dry emphasis. "When she was here 
 she ran this gambling-house," he added. 
 
 I caught my breath. "'Was here'? What 
 do you mean ?" I asked sharply. 
 
 "She's dead murdered, / think," answered 
 the consul. 
 
 "But how did she get here ?" I questioned 
 abruptly. 
 
 We had reached the door of the large gam-
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 67 
 
 bling-room and stood looking in. The heavy 
 scent of the lilies blended suddenly with the 
 waves of noise from the street outside, and 
 the consul raised his voice to answer. 
 
 "She came here, eight or ten years ago, 
 with a rich old Chinaman who had made his 
 pile in San Francisco. He left her this place 
 when he died," said the consul with a reminis- 
 cent attention to details. "She was the 
 prettiest woman I have ever seen but hard 
 as iron and cold as a stone ! I tried once 
 to ask her a few friendly, personal questions. 
 She never answered; just looked at me and, 
 after I'd repeated the questions a couple of 
 times, I realized that she wanted me to mind 
 my own business," asserted the consul with 
 grieved amazement. 
 
 " But a young American woman ! How 
 could she run this gambling-house alone?" 
 I cried. 
 
 The consul pointed toward the long table. 
 "She sat at one end of that a revolver in 
 reach of each hand ! When any one tried to 
 cheat or argue ! Only rich Chinese were 
 admitted. Of course I don't approve of gam- 
 bling," said the consul virtuously, "but if
 
 68 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 an American is going to do a thing I like it 
 done like this !" 
 
 "Why do you think she was murdered by 
 the servants ?" I asked, remembering Et-san's 
 mute misery. 
 
 The consul was instantly belligerent. "She 
 was shot with one of her own gambling-table 
 revolvers,'* he said. "The servants say it 
 was still in her hand when they found her. 
 But she came to me a while ago about her 
 will left everything to that servant you 
 were talking to ! You'll never get me to be- 
 lieve that the old woman didn't know that 
 she'd profit by getting her mistress out of 
 the way," asserted the consul with irritable 
 emphasis as he made for the door. 
 
 In the courtyard the interpreter stopped 
 us. "Mail come England side. One piece 
 for dead missee," he said, holding up a 
 letter with a London postmark and the ad- 
 dress "United Service Club" on opposite 
 corners. 
 
 The consul glanced at it. "Take that to 
 the British consul and have him return it to 
 the sender," he ordered. 
 
 But he did not notice the little book held
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 69 
 
 close under my arm because, as we went 
 through the narrow entrance, we found the 
 street blocked by a dense crowd, and the 
 consul, returning from a protracted view of 
 the cause of the congestion, urged me to stop 
 and watch the performance. 
 
 "Some wandering jugglers the best I've 
 ever seen ! You shouldn't miss them," he 
 declared with enthusiasm. But I, pleading 
 a proclivity for headache, refused, and left 
 him standing enthralled, while above his 
 head the jugglers, hand over hand, started 
 on the initial stage of their unexplainable 
 achievement the rope trick. 
 
 I have it yet the little book, holding on 
 its small pages the records of quaint, prepos- 
 terous transactions procedures filled with 
 so guileful an ingenuousness that they leave 
 you divided between amazement and amuse- 
 ment. Business transactions; itemized lists 
 of bribery and "squeeze" moneys paid to 
 the dignitaries of the district all the great 
 names of the province flaunted across the 
 narrow pages. 
 
 And also, in scattered, isolated paragraphs, 
 it holds the meagre history of a soul's growth
 
 70 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 from the days when comfort and leisure were 
 sufficient, to the hour when, through suffering, 
 her dazed mind came at last face to face with 
 its ordeal and cowered unreasoningly before 
 the engulfing loneliness of the years that 
 stretched ahead. 
 The first entry was made seven years ago. 
 
 Cheong-li died to-day. Apri1 ' I9 ' a 
 
 How curious it is that what seemed the final step 
 of my downfall is to end in wealth, leisure, and inde- 
 pendence ! I am to take over, and run, this gambling- 
 house for myself. Cheong-li secured it to me months 
 ago. I am unspeakably grateful to him. 
 
 I am ordering books, and books, and books ! 
 
 January, 1911. 
 
 I wonder if my mother ever thinks of me ? My 
 cheap, silly mother ! All my life, as a child, was spent 
 with servants, while my mother went from luncheons 
 to bridge parties, from dinners to the theatre. Any- 
 thing anywhere that could keep her from her real 
 duties at home, and stand between her and one mo- 
 ment of honest self-communion; and always bills 
 and lack of money. 
 
 Only when I a young, inexperienced girl attracted 
 the admiration of a man who was entirely unsuitable 
 in every way but a financial one, did she ever show 
 any interest in me. 
 
 And after the inevitable crash I never thought of
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 71 
 
 appealing to her. How could I expect her to understand 
 my running away from a man who could provide me 
 with automobiles and money to spend on all sorts of 
 amusements ? How preposterous she must have con- 
 sidered me in objecting to his diversions when / was 
 so amply provided for! 
 
 December, 1912. 
 
 The Viceroy entertained a party here last evening. 
 I was notified that he would honor my establishment 
 and a room was made ready. The Viceroy's losings 
 were small; but his friends, among them, parted with 
 three thousand taels. 
 
 Early this morning a coolie came, bringing a care- 
 fully worded message which, when deciphered by my 
 steward, disclosed the Viceroy's unabashed request for 
 the money his friends had "accidentally left behind." 
 
 Added to this my diplomatic steward advised me 
 to contribute an extra thousand as a mark of apprecia- 
 tion for the honor shown me by his excellency. 
 
 And yet they say China is carelessly governed ! I 
 am glad that there is only one Viceroy allowed to each 
 province. 
 
 May, 1913. 
 
 The steward was right. What might have been a 
 serious blow to us was averted by the Viceroy's inter- 
 vention. 
 
 It is pleasant to feel that when you shut a door no 
 one has a right to open it. 
 
 But why is it that success is so disappointing ? For
 
 72 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 the first time in my life I can do as I like; I have hun- 
 dreds of books; more money than I can use. And now 
 I find it tiresome to read or spend ! Et-san lectures 
 daily on my need of new dresses. 
 
 February, 1914. 
 
 Books are cheerless things; when I read I am in- 
 creasingly disillusioned. All of them tell you of mis- 
 takes and their bitter aftermath but not of a better 
 ordering of life and the avoidance of errors. 
 
 And for life's achievement I find in them but two 
 ideals: The dash for the open sea The Great Ad- 
 venture ! Or the peace of a landlocked harbor. 
 
 I will not have either. 
 
 November, 1914. 
 
 I have never known affection; it must be a warm 
 and comforting thing to gather close to you. The 
 shadow of a great rock 
 
 I have only known love. 
 
 November, 1914. 
 Was it even love that I knew ? 
 
 May, 1915. 
 
 Without asking permission that blundering Amer- 
 ican consul brought a crowd of tourists here to-day; 
 it was in the afternoon and the unsuspecting gate- 
 coolie let them in. My ex-husband and his newest 
 wife were in the party and their embarrassment was 
 diverting; but such a thing must not happen again. 
 
 June, 1915. 
 
 If I could live my life over I would not leave my 
 husband. Youth finds unfaithfulness and disillusion
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 73 
 
 intolerable while experience is only amazed that it 
 could be deceived again and laughs at its own 
 credulity. 
 
 July, 1915. 
 
 All life excepting that of civilized man and a few 
 animals temporarily domesticated for his use ends 
 in tragedy. The day that the most ferocious lion passes 
 the zenith of his strength he goes down before some 
 stronger animal; the lack of humanity with which a 
 savage treats a wounded or stricken comrade has al- 
 ways been a matter for criticism among observant 
 travellers. 
 
 Outside of civilization nothing dies a natural death. 
 
 But who is wise enough to know just where civiliza- 
 tion begins and ends ? 
 
 November, 1915. 
 
 Englishmen are, of all men, the most amused, in- 
 terested, and attracted by that quality in a woman 
 which they call pluck. 
 
 My running this gambling-house has struck one of 
 them as an amazingly sporting proposition. 
 
 April, 1916. 
 
 Never before has it been as lovely here as it is this 
 spring. I neither read nor write. 
 
 June, 1916. 
 Jim sailed for England yesterday. 
 
 July, 1916. 
 
 I've been fretting because I am idle. To-day I ar- 
 ranged with workmen for designs for a large wing. 
 I ordered some dresses from Paris saw an old paint- 
 ing that Huang has for sale.
 
 74 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 July, 1916. 
 
 Of all cheats love is the worst ! What is it ? Can 
 you see, or touch, or hear it ? And the pitiful, futile 
 gains of love, what are they ? The intonation of a 
 voice a smile a whispered word ! For these veriest 
 trifles we forget all else, to gather, as a reward for our 
 pursuit, a dull ache of heart and mind and nothing 
 else! 
 
 August, 1916. 
 
 / did expect you to write but the mails have come 
 in from Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, Darien, and Lon- 
 don many times. I know, now, that I never expected 
 you to take me at my word. I overestimated my power 
 over you by immeasurable miles. 
 
 Knowing you as I did, Jim, I am infuriated that I 
 cannot rid myself of this degrading sense of loss. Al- 
 ready, no doubt, you are wondering at your amazing 
 recklessness, and thanking your patron saint that I 
 hadn't sense enough to take advantage of my oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 Truly a man loses his idea of proportion in the 
 Orient is it not so, Jim ? 
 
 How pleasant a belief in idols must be ! One could 
 beat their fists against the pedestals of bronze or stone 
 or lacquer gods and be greatly comforted thereby ! 
 
 I know that the ruin of my life is of my own making 
 and I can neither implore nor blame. 
 
 Did you ever picture to yourself my life here, Jim ? 
 Even with high walls, I can never forget that I am in
 
 Between the Treaty Ports 75 
 
 the centre of a Chinese city, and the noise of it beats 
 like a monstrous pulse through all the hours of my 
 day. Sometimes it is the shrieks of venders the shrill 
 command of a mandarin's bearers and coolies clearing 
 the way before his chair the wail of hired mourners 
 in a funeral procession the hopeless call of men stag- 
 gering under crushing loads; and above it all the echo- 
 ing boom of the temple-bell, and the clanging crash 
 of the priest's cymbals shattering the heavy air like 
 splintering glass 
 
 At night before me, around me the monotony of 
 clicking dice the hideous wasp-like whirring of the 
 wheel 
 
 / am so tired. I long for deep quiet and never find 
 it. How can I bear the long years that stretch ahead ? 
 
 August, 1916. 
 
 You will never know how near to yielding I was, 
 when you spoke of your English gardens ! Only by 
 pulling you away from the subject could I go on. 
 
 I can see them now ! Daffodils and hyacinth, lilacs, 
 and iris yellow and purple, against the old gray walls. 
 Shady rock-gardens, with maidenhair ferns; hovering 
 butterflies and blue larkspur; darting dragon-flies; 
 the drowsy hum of bees; the cold, sweet fragrance 
 of Madonna lilies, ghostlike in the moonlight; the 
 white sweep of rain scattering the roses. And larks 
 singing of endless summers for how are they to guess 
 that summer is soon over ? 
 
 I never wanted your houses or money but most 
 deeply I longed for your gardens.
 
 76 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 August, 1916. 
 
 Why, if money is so easily plentiful to me, do I not 
 buy and enjoy an English garden ? 
 
 Because, even to myself, I am a liar! 
 
 The flowers would be just a background for you; 
 the old walks a pathway bringing you back to me. 
 I am hungry for the sight of your face and the sound 
 of your voice. 
 
 September, 1916. 
 
 Poor old Et-san cannot understand why I spend 
 no more week-ends in Hong-Kong. She assures me 
 that the steward manages well in my absence, and 
 tries to bribe me by promises of chance meetings with 
 a pleasant American woman I talked with. And in 
 the back of her stumbling, devious mind Et-san blames 
 the change to the machinations of some jugglers we 
 saw that day. 
 
 
 
 The Chinese are the greatest gamblers in the world; 
 but when Cheong-li and I started this place I made 
 the rigid law that no one should be allowed to play 
 who could not afford to lose. And I really believed 
 that such a rule could be applied and enforced ! 
 
 Now I look with sick distaste at my paintings, my 
 clothes, and my books. They are mine but at what 
 cost to some spendthrift who, perhaps, stumbled blindly 
 through my door into the night. 
 
 September, 1916. 
 
 At dawn this morning, when the last table was 
 cleared and I had dragged myself to my room, I sat
 
 Between: the Treaty Ports 77 
 
 by the window and watched the light slowly grow in 
 the sky behind the hillside pagoda and realized quite 
 suddenly and clearly that I need not go any farther. 
 
 How stupid how unbelievably stupid I have been, 
 not to know that I need not suffer, or go groping 
 on 
 
 Every night, I have sat with the keys to my de- 
 liverance at my hand and never noticed ! It is too 
 funny ! 
 
 I laughed until Et-san awakened, and scurried in 
 to look at me. 
 
 September, 1916. 
 
 I have put my house in order to-day, with the mak- 
 ing of my will; but I cannot think of any way by which 
 I could give people back their money. Perhaps the 
 bitterest thought connected with such money is that 
 I do not know whom I may have taken it from. 
 
 October, 1916. 
 
 I wonder if any one else facing their last day of life 
 was ever as ludicrous as I ? 
 
 To the end I am a predestined daughter of havoc, 
 and this day, which should be given up to great deeds 
 and thoughts, is sliding by, punctuated by the usual 
 small annoyances. Et-san poor old soul irritates me 
 by hovering about. And never before have the street 
 venders shrieked so unceasingly or the scent of the 
 gardenias seemed so deadly sweet 
 
 I have juggled with life and happiness and lost.
 
 78 Between the Treaty Ports 
 
 When the game is over who cares to sit and look at 
 the clean-swept table ? 
 
 Will it be cold ? Will I suffer ? Can I look back ? 
 I should like it to be very still, and then never any 
 more to think or feel. 
 
 This was the last entry. 
 
 And so, when I see my waitress spread the 
 embroidered table-cloth, I find myself re- 
 membering that hot day in Hong-Kong and 
 the jugglers who looked back. 
 
 "It oughtn't to be possible for folks who 
 have brains to waste their lives on things 
 like this to be used so commonlike ' says 
 Janet, with grim Scotch-Presbyterian disap- 
 proval, as she smoothes the cloth into place. 
 
 "Maybe they are forced to by circum- 
 stances," I suggest. 
 
 But Janet, with a snort of righteous un- 
 belief, relegates circumstances to the increas- 
 ingly large company of conditions about 
 which she has no curiosity. 
 
 I am not so sensible. I shall always wonder 
 what was in that letter the consul sent back ?
 
 IV 
 ORDERS 
 
 CAPTAIN FRANK WINDSOR, U. S. Navy, 
 paused outside the hospital entrance and 
 looked up toward the third window in the 
 left wing. It was the window of his wife's 
 room; he knew it well. For months now he 
 had paid a daily visit that was the bright 
 spot at the end of her dragging afternoons. 
 All the gossip of their service friends, of the 
 department, of the war-time shifting of offi- 
 cers, he stored up to tell her when, after finish- 
 ing his day's work, he stopped for the visit 
 that was strictly limited in length by the at- 
 tending specialists. 
 
 To-day was different. Luncheon was barely 
 over; they were to have the whole after- 
 noon together a war-time holiday ! Captain 
 Windsor, straightening his shoulders, heard 
 the rustle of newly folded paper in his pocket 
 as he mounted the steps and entered the 
 hospital. 
 
 79
 
 8o Orders 
 
 On the landing an interne, hurrying past, 
 smiled a casual greeting: "You're early!" 
 he commented. At the door of Mrs. Wind- 
 sor's room her nurse, evidently waiting for 
 him, answered his questions evenly: : 'Yes, 
 the doctor told me. . . . No, he doesn't 
 think it can make any difference. . . . Yes, 
 she expects you. . . . No, we haven't told 
 her," and added: "I'll be right at the desk if 
 you want me. I won't come unless you ring." 
 
 Captain Windsor knocked, and opened the 
 door. His wife lay, as he so often found her, 
 watching the flickering folds of a big Amer- 
 ican flag on the flag-staff of the opposite build- 
 ing. She turned at his entrance to smile 
 her usual greeting, and her husband, noticing 
 her lace boudoir-cap with its ribbon roses, 
 her bed-jacket with its shining bows, spoke 
 briskly: "My! How dressed up we are! 
 Never saw so much pink-satin ribbon at once 
 before !" He leaned to kiss her. "How well 
 you look ! We'll have you climbing lamp- 
 posts before you know it!" He laid the 
 square box he carried on the coverlet. 
 
 She smiled contentedly, her hands busy 
 with the package. "I do feel better," she*
 
 Orders 81 
 
 agreed, and added: " Lilies-of-the-valley the 
 dears ! This is a real party ! It's a long time 
 since you had a holiday. How did you get 
 this half-day off ? When I'm well let's go 
 on a month's leave and not ask what things 
 cost or care what we spend a regular navy 
 spree!" She laughed anticipatively. "We've 
 had all sorts of good times in all kinds of 
 queer places . . . but always with the dread 
 of orders hanging over us. Orders I My 
 whole navy life has pivoted around that 
 word ... for fear, when the orders came, 
 they'd send you somewhere that I couldn't 
 follow the ship and be with you in port. But 
 after all, we haven't been separated much, 
 and we've been so happy! Tell me: Which 
 place do you remember most pleasantly? 
 Where did you have the best time ?" 
 
 The captain did not answer. Mrs. Windsor, 
 seeming not to notice, went gayly on : " What 
 nice holidays we've had, Frank ! Do you 
 remember our honeymoon in Quebec the 
 old French city under the hill, the queer car- 
 riages with the big springs, the quiet churches ? 
 I wonder if it has changed much in twenty- 
 five years ?"
 
 82 Orders 
 
 Captain Windsor smiled reminiscently. 
 "Not much, I don't believe. When you're 
 well we'll go back and see, and this time I'll 
 buy you whatever you want ! How I hated 
 to refuse you the little ermine collar you 
 liked but I was afraid that if I bought 
 it I wouldn't have enough money to pay our 
 hotel bill. Even in those days an ensign's 
 pay was small to marry on. I've often 
 thought of that little neckpiece and hated 
 to remember that you wanted it, and I had 
 to refuse." 
 
 She broke in, laughing: "If I had had the 
 sense I was born with I should have realized 
 how foolish that little string of fur would 
 look without the muff *o match ! But even 
 my foolishness didn't >ad me to covet an 
 ermine muff ! We weren't so wise at An- 
 napolis !" 
 
 They laughed together. "I was quite im- 
 pressed by my job of junior instructor at the 
 Naval Academy; when you told me that you 
 just couldn't receive callers in your bedroom 
 at our boarding-house 'no one at your home 
 ever entertained visitors in a regular bedroom' 
 I felt that you were perfectly justified in
 
 Orders 83 
 
 your demand. We figured up that we couldn't 
 afford a sitting-room; but what did we pay 
 for that folding-bed ?" 
 
 Mrs. Windsor sobered. "Eighty-nine dol- 
 lars ! And after we'd left the store we sud- 
 denly remembered that we hadn't even count- 
 ed up what our board bill for the month 
 would be. I was perfectly miserable, and bit- 
 terly conscious of being a matrimonial failure 
 when you turned accusingly and asked me: 
 'Didn't it occur to you that we'd have to 
 eat?' I thought you were cruel!" affirmed 
 Mrs. Windsor. 
 
 "I was a brute!" agreed her husband; 
 " I didn't realize what a fruitful topic of con- 
 versation it was going to be. Folding-beds 
 were a novelty then; we showed every caller 
 how ours worked !" Both of them laughed; 
 the captain continued thoughtfully: "You've 
 been wonderful, Beth. Never, since those 
 first years, have you let me feel that you 
 wanted things that I couldn't give you; 
 you've adapted your needs to fit my pay. 
 Do you recall the December that I had been 
 plaguing you to tell me what you'd like for 
 Christmas, and you finally chose a sewing-
 
 84 Orders 
 
 machine ? Old Rice was staying with us, 
 and when he saw it he remarked: 'What a 
 nice useful present ! Give her a wash-board 
 and tub, next year!' What is it, dear? 
 Shall I call the nurse ?" 
 
 Mrs. Windsor shook her head. . . . "All 
 right ... in a second" . . . she whispered, 
 and added: ' . . . No nurses . . . wanted 
 ... to spoil . . . our holiday. . . . Besides, 
 the pain is ... much less . . . than it has 
 been. It acts ... as though it had grown 
 . . . discouraged, and was leaving" . . . she 
 smiled reassuringly. "What awful Christ- 
 mases we have spent ! Do you remember 
 the one aboard that quarantined liner, at 
 the disinfecting docks in Honolulu harbor ? 
 And the holiday hula dance those rich tourists 
 invited us to see ? I didn't dare glance toward 
 you when the dancers, clad in grass skirts and 
 carnation anklets, pranced in ! I never real- 
 ized before just how much money would buy !" 
 
 "When I think of the diseases we've had 
 a chance at, and didn't catch, I believe we 
 were born to be hanged," commented her 
 husband. " Black smallpox up the Yangtze 
 I was frightened about you ! It was bad
 
 Orders 85 
 
 enough aboard ship, without worrying over the 
 risks you were running in those Chinese cities ! " 
 "I loved all of those cities !" asserted Mrs. 
 Windsor slowly. "Sometimes, when I'm suf- 
 fering a good deal, it has helped me to think 
 of those colorful days Kiukiang, with her 
 grass-grown city wall, crumbling pagoda, and 
 wide river across the valley floor; the ruined 
 courtyards and palaces, the irregular stairs 
 to the hilltop shrines, the willow road to 
 Purple Mountain at Nanking; the lapis-col- 
 ored tiles and marble pavements, the laden 
 camels swinging along through a haze of 
 golden dust, the vermilion-lacquered temples 
 set in bitter-cold, blue- white snow at Peking; 
 and over all the daily life the slow booming 
 of temple-bells, the movement and color . . . 
 come back to comfort me for these . . . gray 
 days." She paused, then hurried on: "Will 
 you ever forget that dreadful, parlorless hotel 
 at Hankow, and the English naval officer 
 and his wife who came to call, late in the 
 afternoon ? I felt internationally disgraced 
 when one of the hotel servants came and took 
 away all our chairs to use around the supper- 
 table!"
 
 86 Orders 
 
 Captain Windsor laughed. "Funny how 
 youth magnifies trifles; now I can't even re- 
 call that officer's name." 
 
 Mrs. Windsor, holding her breath, turned 
 painfully on her side. "I haven't forgotten 
 a detail of my solitary holiday visit to the 
 Ming tombs," she said. "I had come back 
 filled with a sort of reverent awe of the wide, 
 lovely valley, the colossal granite animals 
 bordering miles of avenue to the tomb, with 
 its golden-yellow imperial tiles all gleaming 
 in the slant sunshine of late afternoon right 
 into the midst of a howling, antiforeign 
 mob of Chinese. They had hung one mis- 
 sionary a woman in an archway of the 
 city gate. I had never before known blank 
 fear until the moment the mob turned on 
 me and stones began to fall. But when that 
 detachment of soldiers, each holding a long 
 spear straight out in front of him, suddenly 
 appeared around a bend in the road and 
 charged into the rioters Well, every per- 
 son has a right to imagine how they prefer 
 angels to look ! I'll take mine Manchus," 
 asserted Mrs. Windsor. 
 
 Her husband nodded. "That was the
 
 Orders 87 
 
 year Old Rice, on a dare, rode his high- 
 wheeled American bicycle on the top of the 
 wall around the Forbidden City; all the 
 palace guards, thinking that the devil was 
 arriving, threw away their arms and, lying 
 down, covered their faces. By the way, 
 Beth, I had a letter from Old Rice to-day. 
 It was headed 'At a famous chateau/ and 
 he told how the American engineers had 
 patched up the old place with corrugated 
 iron and Georgia pine 'effectual, but not 
 picturesque.' Rice said: 'All around it are 
 the graves of American Marines, many of 
 whom went directly to France from Haiti, 
 without even a chance to go home and say 
 good-by. J " 
 
 Captain Windsor hesitated, then went on: 
 "Old Rice is with the sailors who are using 
 the big navy guns, mounted on railroad-cars, 
 for bombarding. Fine job, Beth !" His voice 
 was enthusiastically considerate. 
 
 She raised a silencing hand. "We're talk- 
 ing about holidays and play; not war and 
 work," she reminded him, and added: "I'm 
 still in the Orient!" 
 
 There was silence. Neither of them spoke
 
 88 Orders 
 
 of Japan or the tiny, long-hoped-for son 
 buried under the cryptomerias. Captain 
 Windsor, remembering, saw in place of the 
 frail figure on the narrow hospital bed, a 
 young mother trying, with pathetic bravery, 
 to fight down her grief and make his week's 
 leave at Nikko less forlorn. " I never hear 
 the sound of waterfalls or smell the heavy 
 scent of those pink-spotted lilies but it all 
 comes back," he thought, and reached for 
 her thin hand on the coverlet. 
 
 Mrs. Windsor broke the silence. "We 
 didn't have many Philippine holidays," she 
 commented. "I can't seern to think of any 
 except the afternoon the admiral, you, and 
 I went for a walk back of Olongapo and the 
 caribou chased us. It was ignominious, after 
 we'd run across the field, and nearly broken 
 our necks clambering over the fence, to find 
 that the wretched animal was securely tied. 
 I'll never forget the gallant way the admiral 
 and you sprinted and didn't bother about me !" 
 
 "We didn't need to! You were a full lap 
 ahead of us the whole way ! Much you cared 
 whether your poor husband was gored to 
 death by a mad buffalo. Yes? Come in!"
 
 Orders 89 
 
 The house physician opened the door and 
 glanced sharply at Mrs. Windsor's white face. 
 "All right ?" he questioned. She nodded. 
 
 "We're having a half-holiday together. 
 Don't get them very often in war-time," 
 vouchsafed the captain genially. " She's look- 
 ing much better?" his voice unconsciously 
 begged assurance. 
 
 The doctor smiled. "Fine things, holi- 
 days!" he agreed. "I always spend mine 
 at other hospitals watching crack surgeons 
 perform difficult operations. Oh, yes ! I 
 know all about the old lady who kissed the 
 cow!" he laughed, adding, as he closed the 
 door, "I'll be on this floor for the rest of the 
 afternoon." 
 
 Mrs. Windsor ignored the interruption. 
 "Of all the places we've lived I like this city 
 the least," she said bitterly; "it's hotter 
 than Tawi Tawi in the summer and colder 
 than Greenland in the winter! Since we've 
 been stationed here I've realized why, if 
 George Washington had to live here, he 
 refused a third term; but what I'll never 
 comprehend is why he accepted a second 
 
 one."
 
 90 Orders 
 
 "You'd have liked it if you hadn't been 
 ill," her husband comforted; "illness spoils 
 any place." 
 
 Silence again. The captain gently patted 
 his wife's hand and cleared his throat to 
 speak, then changed his mind. Outside the 
 sunlight was waning; the flag on the building 
 opposite snapped sharply in the breeze; a 
 friendly sparrow hopped to the window-ledge, 
 looked in, and flew away. From inside the 
 hospital came the subdued rumble of a rubber- 
 tired cart returning from the operating-room, 
 and the preliminary rattle of dishes on supper 
 trays. 
 
 Mrs. Windsor spoke reflectively: ''' Those 
 long months when your ship was away on 
 the cruise around the world were the hardest 
 I've ever known," she said. "I was in a hotel 
 on Brooklyn Heights, and I had been watch- 
 ing for two hours when, quite suddenly, just 
 at noon, the battleship slid into view and 
 came down the river and under the Brooklyn 
 Bridge, along the Battery, past Governor's 
 Island. It was sunshiny; the band playing, 
 the deck blue with sailors, and all the tugs 
 and all the ferry-boats, crowded with women
 
 Orders 91 
 
 whose husbands couldn't be snatched away 
 at a moment's notice, were whistling. 
 
 "When you came back it was winter at 
 Old Point. A great crowd had been wait- 
 ing since dawn on the sea-wall. It was rain- 
 ing hard; a gray fog over everything none 
 of the glamour of that 'first smudge of smoke* 
 on the horizon. But again, just at noon, 
 the first ship came out of the mist, quite 
 near. And the long months of missing you 
 were over. . . ." 
 
 Captain Windsor nodded. " I thought we'd 
 never get back," he agreed. "I can't tell you 
 what it has meant to me to know, always, 
 that you were waiting for me. They've been 
 happy years, Beth !" 
 
 She seemed not to hear. "I was thinking 
 of the time that the German division came 
 over to visit America, and your ship was de- 
 tailed to help entertain them. Do you remem- 
 ber the parties on theMoltke and our comments 
 on how low and near the water those ships 
 were ? They kept awnings stretched all the 
 time they were in port, but a junior officer 
 told me that at sea, when the awnings were 
 furled, the cinders were dreadful ! And they
 
 92 Orders 
 
 kept their turrets tightly locked all the time 
 that they were here although they expected 
 to be shown everything on our ships !" 
 
 "It isn't so long ago. If any one had told 
 me then that within ten years we'd be fight- 
 ing Germany, I wouldn't have believed them," 
 said her husband. 
 
 "I disliked some of those officers on sight ! 
 One of them had the crudest expression; 
 I expect, when the war is over, to hear that he 
 framed the submarine orders. But the cap- 
 tain the one who had such a pleasant face 
 and kindly voice, and who was so proud of 
 the pictures of his wife and daughter when 
 I remember him I know that there is at least 
 one nice man in Germany !" commented 
 Mrs. Windsor. 
 
 "Must be lonesome for him," remarked 
 the captain, and added: "It'll be lonesome 
 for the rest of them when this war is over. 
 Germans will be the lonesomest people on 
 earth!" 
 
 Mrs. Windsor agreed: "The Germans can 
 go to Austria for their much-prized summer 
 vacations, and the Austrians to Germany 
 with side-trips to Bulgaria and Turkey." She
 
 Orders 93 
 
 was talking against the rising silence. She 
 had been taken ill shortly after the Moltkes 
 visit; some of the later holidays she did not 
 care to remember. 
 
 Almost uncannily her husband answered: 
 "When you're well we'll have some more 
 good times. I've always wanted to see India 
 and Ceylon, and you've yearned to catch a 
 bird of paradise on his native heath when 
 we learn where that heath is ! Then there's 
 Java and the gorges of the Yangtze. Get 
 up ! You untravelled young provincial ! A 
 whole world you've hardly touched is wait- 
 ing for you !" 
 
 She did not reply; there was silence in 
 the darkening room. 
 
 With determined bravery the captain spoke: 
 "This is a great war, Beth. And when you 
 think of the loss, the suffering, the horror 
 and tragedy; the unnecessary brutality to 
 women and little children, it makes you won- 
 der what punishment can be adequate. But 
 before we talk of punishment there's a big 
 job to be finished up; every man's work will 
 be cut out for him, either here or abroad, and 
 each man must answer the call when it comes
 
 94 Orders 
 
 personal feelings held in check in the 
 struggle for a great principle. I've been 
 working for months on an organization that 
 is going to be a success, but, of course, we 
 can't put it in force in America." He fumbled 
 at the buttons of his blouse. "Just think, 
 Beth, they're going to let me go abroad with 
 it and if I succeed you'll be proud of me. 
 I've always wanted you to be proud of me, 
 Beth, and now I have my chance ! I'm not 
 supposed to tell any one what the job is, but 
 I'm going to tell you !" 
 
 He leaned and whispered, long and ear- 
 nestly, explaining in detail, while she listened 
 intently and nodded her comprehension. 
 "Splendid!" she agreed; "it's wonderful to 
 think that you've been allowed to plan and 
 perfect it ! You'll get all the credit !" 
 
 He sighed with relief. Why had he been 
 afraid to tell her ? All the years her encourage- 
 ment and sympathy had been his one unfail- 
 ing asset. Yet, somehow, she looked so small, 
 as though in the last few moments she had 
 crumpled down in the bed. He glanced sur- 
 reptitiously at his watch. "I knew you'd un- 
 derstand," he said gratefully; "you've always
 
 Orders 95 
 
 understood. It will be the best duty I've 
 ever had, far and away ! And when I get 
 back you'll be well, waiting for me. We'll go 
 on another honeymoon to Quebec, and I'll 
 buy you an ermine coat (the collar will have 
 grown up !) Of course it will all work out 
 right. Why, Beth, what is it ?" 
 
 Mrs. Windsor, fighting for breath, gasped 
 through her tears: "I can't . . . pretend 
 any longer. . . . Do you suppose . . . after 
 all these years . . . that I can't tell when 
 you are trying ... to keep something from 
 me ? ... When do you go ? ... Have 
 you your orders ?" 
 
 Silently he laid the folded orders on the 
 coverlet. "I leave at seven to-night. The 
 ship sails at dawn," he whispered. 
 
 From outside came the sound of running 
 feet; the door opened. Captain Windsor 
 found himself being gently propelled toward 
 the corridor. The door closed. 
 
 After a while the cheerful interne joined 
 him and talked, with impersonal breeziness, 
 of a brother in France : " Lucky kid ! Facing 
 Metz !" And added: "Hear you're going to- 
 night?"
 
 96 Orders 
 
 Captain Windsor swallowed hard and nod- 
 ded: "My wife?" he questioned with dumb 
 misery. 
 
 The interne was disinterestedly assuring: 
 'This afternoon didn't really make any dif- 
 ference the end was so near a matter of 
 a week or ten days ! But we couldn't take 
 the responsibility of explaining, each day, 
 why you didn't come to see her, if you had 
 gone without telling her." 
 
 Captain Windsor felt gropingly for a chair. 
 "Will she have to suffer?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, no!" said the interne with profes- 
 sional cheerfulness; "the pain is nearly over. 
 I can promise you that !" 
 
 Later, as his train time drew near, the cap- 
 tain bent, for a grudgingly vouchsafed minute, 
 to kiss her. "Couldn't you wait ... for 
 the . . . few days?" she whispered; then, 
 in answer to his agonized mumble of "War 
 time orders" "Good-by good luck! Come 
 safely home," she said. 
 
 Turning blindly away, he realized for the 
 first time that he held something, and looked 
 down. Tightly crumpled in his clinched hand
 
 Orders 97 
 
 was the outward and visible sign of the ardu- 
 ously won experience of his long career; the 
 shining reward for months of war-time work 
 and planning: His orders.
 
 ANCHORS AWEIGH 
 
 So firmly is the superstition, "It is bad 
 luck to watch your husband's ship out of 
 sight," established among "the wives" in 
 the United States navy, that if you had ques- 
 tioned Mrs. Frank Bradley wife of a junior 
 lieutenant and a bride of two months as to 
 its origin, she would have answered unhesitat- 
 ingly that it was "an order from the secretary 
 of the navy." 
 
 She had no idea of disobeying the order 
 when, after bidding her husband good-by very 
 early that morning and crying herself into 
 a state of exhaustion afterward, she realized 
 she could get to the navy-yard in time to 
 see the ship sail and perhaps catch a last 
 glimpse of him. 
 
 Like most officers, Lieutenant Bradley 
 "didn't want his wife making a nuisance of 
 herself around the ship," but if she sat in 
 
 the jitney he wouldn't know she was there. 
 
 98
 
 Anchors Aweigh 99 
 
 And the jitney-man, on being questioned as 
 to charges for the prudent wife of a junior 
 lieutenant attends to such details, even in 
 time of stress had answered that "he 
 wouldn't charge anything for waiting; it'd 
 be a kind of novelty to watch a battleship 
 get away." 
 
 Out of the wind, sheltered by a building, 
 Mrs. Bradley could see that the few men on 
 deck were busy. 
 
 The duty-launch had been hoisted and 
 secured; the forward gangway lowered; two 
 noisy tugs came alongside; on the bridge 
 the navigator bent over a large chart; the 
 mail-orderly returned from his last trip to the 
 post-office; a messenger boy, whistling lustily, 
 sauntered up with a handful of telegrams. 
 
 Four bells struck. The ship was to sail 
 at half-past ten. Through a blur of tears 
 Mrs. Bradley saw the navy-yard workmen 
 gather about the after gangway. 
 
 Several poorly clad women arrived and 
 stood near her; they tried to cheer a younger 
 woman who was sobbing and monotonously 
 asking: "What if there's war?" 
 
 The jitney-man heard her. "If there's
 
 ioo Anchors Awcigh 
 
 war that big ship might be the first one to 
 go to the bottom," he observed cheerfully 
 to his passenger. 
 
 "Good morning! It's little Mrs. Bradley, 
 isn't it?" questioned a pleasant voice. 
 
 The admiral's wife stood beside the jitney. 
 
 "I'm visiting at the commandant's the 
 house is so near I couldn't resist getting a last 
 glimpse of things," she said, and laughed 
 apologetically. "John hates women hanging 
 around the ship but he can't see me here," 
 she added. 
 
 "Do admirals feel that way? I thought 
 it was just my husband," said Mrs. Bradley. 
 
 The admiral's wife smiled. 
 
 "This must be your first parting," she 
 observed. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley nodded forlornly. 
 
 "Because there are fifty-two officers on 
 that ship most of them are married and 
 fifty of the wives aren't anywhere in sight," 
 said the admiral's wife. 
 
 "They've grown used to seeing their hus- 
 bands go or else they don't love them as I 
 do mine," remarked Mrs. Bradley resentfully. 
 
 "I've said good-by to John in every port
 
 Anchors Aweigh 101 
 
 from Olongapo to Pensacola; it never loses 
 its novelty by getting easier; but one grows 
 more patient," observed the admiral's wife. 
 
 "Other times couldn't be as bad ! This 
 parting is terrible, and hard, because there 
 may be war," cried Mrs. Bradley. 
 
 The admiral's wife did not answer. She 
 clinched her hands as she remembered a part- 
 ing long ago in a gray hospital-room, when 
 her ensign son looked at her from unrecogniz- 
 ing eyes and agonizingly moved his body 
 under the encircling bandages. . . . 
 
 "Minor turret explosion on battleship," 
 announced the earliest editions of the news- 
 papers when, without a word for her to 
 treasure through the years, her son had 
 slipped away . . . into the dawn. 
 
 Resolutely the admiral's wife glanced at 
 the little group of women near them. 
 
 "Those are sailors' wives one of them has 
 a baby that is too tiny to bring here this cold 
 morning," she said. 
 
 "That's the one that's crying all the time 
 about war," volunteered the jitney-man. 
 
 "Frank says it will be a naval war," 
 said Mrs. Bradley, swallowing with difficulty.
 
 102 Anchors Aweigh 
 
 "I hope you cheered him up our men 
 need all their courage during these trying 
 days," said the admiral's wife briskly. She 
 did not mention that five times during their 
 last few minutes together the admiral had 
 reminded her not to forget to pay his life- 
 insurance dues. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley began to cry. "I told Frank 
 . . . that if anything happened to ... him 
 ... I'd soon join him/* she sobbed. 
 
 "Splendid!" observed the admiral's wife 
 dryly; "after that I suppose he left the house 
 singing joyfully at the top of his voice." 
 
 "What gets me is that while those fellows 
 are going about their business on deck there 
 can be a submarine sitting right on the bottom 
 underneath them," remarked the jitney-man 
 speculatively. 
 
 "Your first name doesn't happen to be 
 Job, does it?" the admiral's wife asked him 
 impersonally. 
 
 "No'm," he answered "Samuel. Samuel 
 Johnson Jones but, in case you want me, 
 the telephone's under the name of Sulli- 
 van " 
 
 Five bells struck.
 
 Anchors Aweigh 103 
 
 The ship's siren tore the silence into dan- 
 gling shreds. Tugs added their hoarse voices. 
 Near-by destroyers called a greeting and 
 farewell. Voices shouted orders through 
 drifting clouds of smoke. 
 
 Slowly . . . the great dreadnought moved 
 . . . and as the whistles quieted down the 
 band on the quarter-deck played the opening 
 bars of the favorite Naval Academy song, 
 "Anchors Aweigh." 
 
 Gayly the old tune lilted over the crowded 
 gray masses of steel and stone as it had echoed 
 across sunny parade-ground and uproarious 
 football fields when youth called to youth 
 of springtime that is so quickly gone. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley, her eyes shining, jumped 
 from the jitney and frantically waved her 
 muff. Tears and forebodings were swept 
 away by an overwhelming flood of enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 The sailors' wives stepped forward; the 
 one with the tiny baby lifted it high and, 
 steadying its head, bade it "look at father's 
 boat and the pretty flag." 
 
 Puffing . . . the tugs warped the ship from 
 the pier . . . shoved her sidewise . . . into
 
 104 Anchors Aweigh 
 
 the channel . . . paused ... a perceptible 
 minute . . . and moved ahead . . . down- 
 stream. 
 
 Slowly . . . she gathered momentum; at 
 her bow two white-tipped lines of water 
 flowed sharply out . . . more faintly "An- 
 chors Aweigh" drifted back on the cold wind. 
 Mrs. Bradley, mindful of superstition, 
 turned away and climbed into the jitney. 
 
 "But where is the admiral's wife?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "The lady that was talking to you ? She's 
 gone!" said the jitney-man. "I asked her 
 something, but she didn't answer just shook 
 her head and walked away sort of stum- 
 bling- 
 He cranked the engine vigorously. 
 "The reason she couldn't answer was be- 
 cause she was crying," said the jitney-man.
 
 VI 
 DUTY FIRST 
 
 SOME hours before the United States broke 
 off diplomatic relations with Germany a 
 watchful observer might have sighted the 
 elusive shadows of coming events. 
 
 The fleet, unheralded by the newspapers, 
 returned from their interrupted target-prac- 
 tice off Cape Cruz, Cuba, to the rallying- 
 point of a Virginia port. In the evening the 
 harbor was empty; the next morning saw it 
 crowded, as the long lines of silent, gray ships 
 "stood in" from sea; destroyers sped swiftly 
 to their anchorages, and submarines like 
 rows of tethered whales gathered about the 
 parent ships. Soon launches were lowered 
 and scurrying between the anchored fleet 
 and the near-by shore. 
 
 The big hotel on the beach filled in an hour 
 with officers' wives quiet women, whose 
 cheerful voices contrasted sharply with the 
 
 wistfulness of their unsmiling eyes and 
 
 105
 
 io6 Duty First 
 
 quickly emptied again as the ships went 
 their appointed ways. Soon the wide harbor 
 was an unbroken, rippling, sunshiny space 
 again. 
 
 Where did they go the ships ? 
 
 Ask the voyagers on transatlantic liners of 
 the grim vessel with the starry flag that 
 loomed suddenly into view through the 
 treacherous mist. 
 
 You may not hear of them the gray ships 
 but tireless, alert, vigilant, they go about 
 their work, and behind that narrow line of 
 steel may dwell in safety those "who go upon 
 their lawful occasions" under the Stars and 
 Stripes. 
 
 Since that memorable Good Friday when 
 the whistles of Washington announced to the 
 waiting city that the President's signature 
 had been affixed to a momentous document 
 the changes on the ships have been slight. 
 It is hardly possible to improve upon an 
 organization that has, by years of unceasing 
 effort, reached a high state of proficiency, 
 and, except that the training of numbers of 
 extra men is added to the routine duties, 
 there is little difference; only now the officers'
 
 Duty First 107 
 
 day begins two hours earlier and ends when 
 their work is finished. 
 
 When, just before dawn, an orderly 
 knocked at the door of the executive officer's 
 stateroom and called "Half-past four, com- 
 mander!" he did not awaken the occupant 
 of the narrow berth. The executive had de- 
 cided, hours before, that morning was never 
 coming, as he tossed about and mentally re- 
 viewed the contents of yesterday's letter and 
 wireless message sent by his wife. 
 
 They were from a distant city, where she 
 had gone to consult a famous surgeon about 
 their only child the small son whose grow- 
 ing helplessness hung like a sombre cloud 
 over all their days and choked any references 
 to the future with a shadowy hand; for the 
 boy was partially and increasingly paralyzed, 
 and every dollar they could spare had gone 
 to doctors of varying capabilities and un- 
 varying avariciousness and all the time the 
 child grew worse. 
 
 This great specialist was their last, hard- 
 wrung resort. The executive's wife had 
 written of the quick, skilful diagnosis, and
 
 io8 Duty First 
 
 had followed the letter by a wireless mes- 
 sage "The surgeon would operate to-morrow 
 at ten a grave operation, but the boy's only 
 chance! Could he come?" it ended in a 
 little burst of panic and loneliness. 
 
 The executive officer smothered a groan 
 and, sitting up, glanced at the pale stars and 
 gray waste of water framed by the open port- 
 hole. The ship was short three officers through 
 illness and even if he could have been spared 
 he could not have reached the hospital until 
 five hours after the operation was over. It 
 was so impossible that he had not even spoken 
 to the captain. 
 
 Twenty minutes later he stepped on deck 
 and faced the routine business of his day 
 in the weird light of the early dawn. 
 
 The executive officer of a battleship or 
 dreadnought holds the rank of commander 
 and, if he is competent, the busiest billet on 
 the ship. He is the housekeeper; every de- 
 tail passes through his hands on its way to 
 the captain; he receives the report of each 
 departmental head; knows the standing and 
 capabilities of every member of the crew. All 
 records of mistakes or accidents are his to
 
 Duty First 109 
 
 investigate, boil down, strip of unnecessary 
 details and present mere shadows of their 
 original selves to the captain for settlement. 
 On board ship an executive officer knows 
 everything except idleness. 
 
 And now, accompanied by the officer of 
 the deck, this executive went over the two 
 rows of launches and duty-boats : tested pul- 
 leys, examined ropes, glanced over the de- 
 tailed lists of their engine fitness; asked a 
 question here, made a suggestion there, and, 
 leaving the officers in charge scribbling in 
 their note-books, went on with the boatswain 
 to inspect the booms those long poles to 
 which launches are fastened, and up which 
 the launch crews scramble with a dexterity 
 that makes the tense observer a ready con- 
 vert to the Darwinian theory. 
 
 The executive took no chances on the ac- 
 curacy of any scientific hypothesis as he ex- 
 amined the lashings and rungs of the rope 
 ladders, the tension of the breast-high man- 
 ropes, the strength of the boat-fastenings, 
 and nodded his commendation. 
 
 Forward, a little group of stewards waited 
 as he came toward the gangway-ladder. He
 
 i io Duty First 
 
 noted, with minute care, the condition of 
 hoists and pulleys, hinges, treads, and land- 
 ing-platform, and spoke his approval to the 
 officer of the deck. 
 
 This opened the ladder to traffic; the 
 stewards and assistant paymaster departed 
 on waiting launches to the nearest port to 
 lay in several days' fresh food supply for 
 officers and crew. 
 
 The executive, examining the anchor gear, 
 spoke to the paymaster and started on his 
 survey of the morning watch. Officers and 
 men were in their places and, with unhurried 
 step, the commander made his rounds from 
 station to station until, after the assistant 
 paymaster and the steward's return, the 
 ship proceeded on her way and the executive, 
 turning over the deck to the officer in charge, 
 went down to the ward-room for his breakfast. 
 
 The long table, extending across the of- 
 ficer's compartment, was simmering with in- 
 dignant comment. The daily wireless news 
 from Arlington had just been delivered, and 
 an account of the shelling of a sunken ship's 
 life-boat by the attacking submarine was the 
 subject of conversation.
 
 Duty First in 
 
 "Have you seen the report, commander?" 
 demanded the doctor; "Mahoney, the gunner 
 who went from this ship, was among those 
 killed. Nice warfare shooting unarmed men 
 in an open life-boat !" 
 
 The executive gave a sharp exclamation. 
 "Not Mahoney!" and added: "He came 
 with me from my last shore station. I first 
 noticed him when he was one of the orderlies 
 outside our house. My boy . . . was de- 
 voted to Mahoney." 
 
 "He was a corking gunner," observed the 
 ordnance officer, and bitterly advocated a 
 general Teutonic exodus to an uncharted 
 tropics. 
 
 "Mahoney was promoted to coxswain be- 
 fore he went up for gunner, at the navy- 
 yard," commented the executive, pursuing 
 his remembrances; "he was so competent 
 that the admiral wanted him but he never 
 would answer the quartermaster's hail. He'd 
 let the quartermaster bawl while he eased 
 in to the gangway and let the admiral out, 
 with no one to receive him !" 
 
 "What happened ?" asked the ordnance 
 officer.
 
 iia Duty First 
 
 "I went over the answers about fifty times 
 with Mahoney. You must answer according 
 to the ranking officer you have aboard. If 
 it's an admiral you answer, 'Flag.' If it's a 
 captain you answer the name of his ship; if it's 
 an officer answer 'Aye, aye'; a junior or petty 
 officer, 'No, no'; an enlisted man, * Hello.' 
 
 'I'm not given to so much talking/ 
 growled Mahoney, and the very next day I 
 happened to be on the dock when the quar- 
 termaster hailed, 'Boat ahoy !' and Mahoney's 
 voice answered: 'One aye, aye! Two no, 
 no's! Three hallo's! And a pay-clerk!' and 
 seeing me he added in the same yell, 'I'm 
 through with launchin' I'll be tryin' for a 
 gunner's rate it's more peaceful,' " recounted 
 the executive, and smiled at the ripple of 
 laughter, but sobered as he remembered. 
 "My boy was around in his wheel-chair. 
 Mahoney talked enough to him. My boy- 
 was devoted to Mahoney," said the com- 
 mander, pushing back his chair and rising. 
 
 From the ward-room he climbed to the 
 upper decks and bridge, to see that the orders 
 for the morning's work were being carried out. 
 
 Then, accompanied by the ordnance officer,
 
 Duty First 113 
 
 he descended to the gun-deck. All matters 
 pertaining to the smooth working of the guns 
 received painstaking, absorbed attention. 
 The sights, the hoists, the breeches, each 
 had their share. The ordnance officer, satis- 
 fied, went his way, while the executive, turn- 
 ing, entered the crew's mess-hall just as 
 the triangular red meal-pennant crept to the 
 yard-arm and the clatter of dishes wrestled 
 with the aroma of coffee. He passed critically, 
 between the long rows of tables, to the galley. 
 Here his approach caused a decided commo- 
 tion; the assistant cook had barely time to 
 make temporary repairs following an agonized 
 but noiseless tussle with Billy, the ship's mas- 
 cot a wayward and defiant goat with an 
 uncontrolled penchant for frequenting the 
 forbidden galley during meal-hours. He met 
 the executive, a few steps beyond, wearing 
 an aggrieved expression and some fragments 
 of potato-peelings; and the commander, pass- 
 ing warily by, registered the remembrance 
 of Billy's provocative, sprightly pas seul to 
 tell his son. 
 
 Would he ever hear again the old ques- 
 tion: "What did the goat do next, father?"
 
 ii4 Duty First 
 
 The executive winced as he turned away. 
 
 At the door of his office his clerk met him 
 with the mail just put aboard from a tug. 
 The commander settled at his desk and sorted 
 over the pile of letters and packages. He 
 took up the official mail first. A few docu- 
 ments were laid aside for the captain's 
 perusal; others he read carefully and locked 
 away in the desk drawer; a number were 
 thrown into the wire basket to be answered 
 by dictation. 
 
 Next came his personal mail. Two letters 
 were from former mess-attendants asking for 
 his assistance in getting a transfer and a 
 higher rating; these were added to the con- 
 tents of the wire basket. Eight were wed- 
 ding invitations "The whole army is getting 
 married!" mused the executive; he came of 
 seafaring stock, but to-day he questioned 
 the charms of his beloved branch of the 
 service. "It's pretty fine to be on land," 
 thought the executive wistfully as he noticed 
 that, for the first time in many months, there 
 was no letter from his wife. Instead a large, 
 square envelope with the postmark of an 
 inland city came to his hand. It was a re-
 
 Duty First 115 
 
 quest from an amateur statistician who 
 mentioned various political affiliations and 
 demanded information as to the amount dis- 
 bursed daily and yearly by the government 
 for officers' food. 
 
 " ' I find it easy to get the figures of the 
 money spent for the sailors' rations, but con- 
 sider it very suspicious that, in these hard 
 times, there is no statement made about the 
 quality and cost of food supplied to officers. 
 As a taxpayer I demand to know/ " read the 
 executive, and dictated the answer to his 
 yeoman. 
 
 "All officers of the United States navy at 
 sea, or on shore duty, buy and pay for every 
 article of food they use," clicked off the type- 
 writer. 
 
 The rest of the letters were from the wives 
 or mothers of sailors in the ship's crew. The 
 executive sighed, as he looked at the number 
 of them. Some were pathetic some abusive. 
 An incoherent scrawl threatened dire things 
 unless the writer's husband, a young ma- 
 chinist's mate (with a good record), continued 
 his allotment. 
 
 From an address in down-town east-side
 
 ii6 Duty First 
 
 New York a girl wrote that just as she had 
 gotten together her wedding outfit the 
 prospective bridegroom had vanished. She 
 "had heard that he had enlisted in the navy 
 under an assumed name and was serving on 
 some ship" what name or which ship she 
 did not know, but, endowing the executive 
 with omniscience, bade him seek out the 
 elusive swain and waken his slumbering sense 
 of responsibility. 
 
 "Wonder why she picked on this ship?" 
 grumbled the recipient aggrievedly. 
 
 One woman, mistaking the commander for 
 the doctor, went into the minute details of 
 an obscure illness and enlarged on the neces- 
 sity of the sailor-relative's immediate return. 
 
 A short note from a mother asked that her 
 son might be allowed to come home. "His 
 father is dying," the letter ended with a pa- 
 thetic dignity. 
 
 The last communication an anonymous 
 one held a threat. The executive officer 
 flipped it with his finger. "Knew he was 
 one of a gang of thieves wish I could catch 
 the others," he said aloud, as he divided the 
 letters into four piles. One pile he sent to
 
 Duty First 117 
 
 the chaplain; another he put aside for future 
 consideration; a single letter was enclosed 
 to the police of a near-by city for investiga- 
 tion; the rest he gathered up to discuss with 
 the captain. 
 
 A knock sounded. "Muster, sir/* said 
 the orderly. The executive followed him to 
 the deck. 
 
 Aft, a bugle was sounding the morning 
 call above the tramp of many feet, as the 
 men marched up or fell in with their divisions. 
 The captain of marines made his report; the 
 ordnance, engineer, and navigating officers 
 accounted for their departments; the pay- 
 master varied his document with two recom- 
 mendations; the doctor, and the master-at- 
 arms in charge of the ship's jail, accounted 
 for absentees. 
 
 The executive gave close attention to 
 the reports, questioned, objected, approved; 
 then, with his hands full of papers and letters, 
 turned toward the captain's door. 
 
 The bugle sounded shrilly for "setting-up" 
 drill, and the sailors and marines launched 
 valiantly but disgustedly into the gymnastic 
 exercises laid out with wise attention to their
 
 ii8 Duty First 
 
 physical welfare, while Billy, from the shad- 
 ow of the turret, watched with amazed won- 
 der his friends' unfruitful antics. 
 
 Ding-ding ! Ding-ding ! rang the ship's bell. 
 
 The executive officer stopped short. 
 
 Ten o'clock ! 
 
 Far away . . . in a hospital waiting-room his 
 wife was sitting silent, wide-eyed, with fingers 
 interlocked to hide their trembling, and alone 
 except for the nurses with their shop-worn, pro- 
 fessional cheerfulness. And somewhere in a 
 room above her an ether cone descending over 
 a small, frightened, fever-flushed face . . . 
 
 The executive officer stumbled a little as 
 he walked toward the captain's door. 
 
 Inside he gave his careful report, answered 
 questions, made a suggestion, wrote down 
 some directions, and, by sheer force of will, 
 concentrated all his attention on the work 
 before him, and finishing rose to go. 
 
 The captain glanced at him with level, 
 kindly eyes. "Anything wrong, comman- 
 der?" he asked, and stood silent as the exec- 
 utive, with the few scattered words, "My 
 boy trepan this morning," turned and hur- 
 ried away.
 
 Far away ... in a hospital waiting-room his wife was sitting.

 
 Duty First 119 
 
 On deck the bugles sang their orders as 
 the crew broke into small groups. Some, 
 with their officers, entered the thick steel 
 turrets where each great fifty-foot gun can 
 throw death and destruction far beyond the 
 dim horizon-line; others manned the many 
 smaller guns; a detail of officers and men 
 climbed to the dizzy heights of the cage-masts 
 to "observe" how and where the shots fell. 
 Signal-corps men brightened the bridge-ends 
 with the flutter and whirl of small flags. 
 Battle practice was on; and the executive 
 officer at his battle station watched and 
 criticised. 
 
 This finished, he hurried back to his office 
 and the daily preliminary mast, where the 
 requests and complaints too trivial to reach 
 the captain are disposed of and investiga- 
 tions of the more serious cases are prepared 
 before the case is taken up at the official police 
 court. 
 
 An executive's duties bring him in close 
 touch with the enlisted personnel, and his 
 judgment, trained in this exacting daily 
 school, is disconcertingly keen. 
 
 Three men, requesting leave of absence to
 
 120 Duty First 
 
 visit dying relatives, went back to their work 
 with great celerity. A cook, yearning for a 
 navy-yard station near his family, was cau- 
 tioned against his growing inclination toward 
 permanent shore duty, and departed, with a 
 rueful grin. Two stokers wanted higher rat- 
 ings; a coxswain requested his good-conduct 
 stripes. These were noted and put down for 
 investigation. 
 
 The executive turned to the big, pleasant- 
 faced machinist's mate who stood next. 
 
 "Want to stop your wife's monthly allot- 
 ment why?" he asked, and laid the pitiful 
 evidence a handful of letters from neighbors, 
 a probation officer, and reluctant relatives 
 on the abusive scrawl he had received that 
 morning. 
 
 The primrose path ! That led through 
 moving-picture palaces and amusement parks 
 to the saloons. 
 
 "Any children?" asked the executive, 
 mentally recruiting the chaplain's assistance. 
 
 "No, sir," answered the machinist and 
 added a grim denunciation of idle women and 
 their ways, as he went out of the narrow door, 
 just as eight bells gave the signal for the band
 
 Duty First 121 
 
 to assist at the crew's enjoyment of their 
 dinner. 
 
 The commander, glancing toward his desk, 
 noticed three packages remaining from his 
 morning mail and tore them open. The first 
 two were official, but from the third he took 
 out a wrapped and padded bundle. A small 
 mechanical replica of an English battleship's 
 launch, complete in every detail, met his 
 astonished eyes. Around the boat-hook, held 
 by the miniature coxswain on the tiny deck, 
 a thin piece of paper was twisted; the execu- 
 tive unwound it. His son's name headed the 
 few lines of writing. "One hello! The cox- 
 swain's me. This will run fine in the bath- 
 tub. I'll be seeing you soon," it read. And 
 the signature was Mahoney's. 
 
 The executive officer hastily examined the 
 wrappings, noting the censor's veto and the 
 postmark. The box had been mailed in Liver- 
 pool a week before Mahoney started on the 
 return voyage of his ill-fated duty. 
 
 "I'll be seeing you soon," reread the com- 
 mander, and shivered in the warm air. 
 
 The long day dragged on. 
 
 At luncheon the executive officer ate, un-
 
 122 Duty First 
 
 noting, what was put before him; answered, 
 unheeding, the chaff of conversation addressed 
 to him. Only the orderlies, with wireless 
 messages, caught his immediate attention as, 
 with apprehensive dread, he opened and read 
 the routine announcements. 
 
 At one o'clock he accompanied the captain 
 to "mast," and gave the results of his in- 
 vestigations or knowledge in deciding ques- 
 tionable cases. 
 
 This finished, the afternoon drills com- 
 menced. 
 
 The executive made frequent visits to 
 different points where the ship's work was 
 going forward or, in his office, checked over 
 transfers, initialled approved requests for 
 advanced ratings, went over examinations for 
 promotions, considered changes of detail and 
 transfers of sailors from one division to an- 
 other to keep the ship's organization up to 
 its highest efficiency and heard frequent re- 
 ports. 
 
 With the ordnance officer he looked over 
 a catch in the working of one of the ammuni- 
 tion hoists, and took down notes of the pro- 
 posed changes; inspected the engine-room
 
 Duty First 123 
 
 where many brawny stokers toiled and sky- 
 larked in the glare of the hungry furnaces. 
 The paymaster's storeroom needed repaint- 
 ing, the executive decided; and gave the 
 order oblivious of the paymaster's involun- 
 tary motion to clasp his head with both hands, 
 as he thought of the impending paint-chipping 
 gang attacking the steel bulkheads with ham- 
 mers and chisels. 
 
 At the doctor's department the odors of 
 anaesthetics and disinfectants wafted out 
 through the hospitably open door; the exec- 
 utive hurried past and did not return, nor 
 did he inspect the wireless-room where mes- 
 sages came and went with snapping and 
 clicking. ' 
 
 As the afternoon waned he became con- 
 scious that, through the usual Freemasonry 
 of ship life, the officers had heard of his trouble. 
 The navigator, finishing a statement of affairs 
 in his department, launched into an imper- 
 sonal diatribe on the miracles wrought by 
 modern surgery. The bachelor captain of 
 marines, recommending some trivial changes 
 in the guard, broke off to speak with inspir- 
 ing earnestness on the marvellous recupera-
 
 124 Duty First 
 
 tive power of children. The doctor came in 
 without any camouflage of reports or ques- 
 tions and started upon a learned medical 
 discourse; then remembering his own three 
 clothes-destroying, shoe-eliminating young 
 pirates choked, and departed hastily. The 
 chaplain paused in the threshing out of truth 
 from romance in a letter under investigation, 
 and cleared his throat. . . . 
 
 From somewhere aft came a wail of un- 
 speakable anguish, of heartrending, tear- 
 wringing melancholy; long crescendos and 
 discords of such rasping shrillness that, as 
 the notes rose and fell the chaplain remarked 
 thoughtfully that one of his teeth needed fill- 
 ing; then, starting up, glanced through the 
 door and down the long deck to where a 
 sailor, seated on an upturned bucket, smiled 
 cheerfully at his increasing power with the 
 mouth-organ. 
 
 "What was I saying?" inquired the chap- 
 lain, and left volunteering to make the 
 musician pocket his instrument or aban- 
 don it. 
 
 And after dinner, at the evening torpedo- 
 defense drill, the sailors "fell to" with dash
 
 Duty First 125 
 
 and vigor, and the last exercise of the day 
 drew to a triumphant finish as the executive, 
 after overlooking the arrangements for to- 
 morrow's pickets and patrols, and verifying 
 the night shifts of officers and men, reported 
 to the captain that the water-tight doors 
 were closed and everything secure. 
 
 " Any message yet from your wife ? " the 
 captain asked. 
 
 The executive shook his head dumbly 
 and, bidding the captain good night, wearily 
 descended the ladder and went to his 
 cabin. 
 
 Ding-ding ! Ding-ding ! sounded the ship's 
 bell. 
 
 "Ten o'clock again" muttered the execu- 
 tive, switching on the light. The cluttered 
 desk demanded his attention; painstakingly 
 he straightened, sorted, arranged dragging 
 out each act to take the extreme limit of time 
 but the little box, with the mechanical 
 steam-launch and message, he put quickly 
 out of sight in a seldom-opened lower drawer. 
 
 " Poor Mahoney," said the executive, and 
 glanced toward his bunk. He was tired 
 . . . but the dark . . . with no protect-
 
 i26 Duty First 
 
 ing wall of work between him . . . and his 
 thoughts. . . . 
 
 For a moment he stood, looking through 
 the open port-hole at the stately proces- 
 sion of the stars the whirl and sweep of 
 water going its appointed way with the chang- 
 ing tides and heard the wide, healing wind 
 singing through the cage-masts and a little 
 feeling of comfort, born of the sense of law 
 and order in all created things, came to him, 
 to be quickly followed by that old pathetic 
 grievance of the children of men, who look 
 with aching eyes at nature's unpitying joy- 
 ousness. . . . 
 
 How far would the agonized cry of one 
 little suffering child reach toward the sky ? 
 The merest needle-point of sound held up 
 against the illimitable, spacious heavens ! 
 
 He turned, with a sudden, unreasoning 
 terror, to face an orderly standing in the 
 doorway. . . . 
 
 "Wireless for you, sir. Any answer?" 
 asked the messenger, watching the executive 
 as he stood holding the unopened telegram 
 in his trembling hand. The commander did 
 not reply as, at last, he tore open the message.
 
 Duty First 127 
 
 But the orderly, waiting outside, heard him 
 give a little breathless exclamation of thank- 
 fulness and saw him walk unsteadily to the 
 desk-chair and bury his face against his 
 arms.
 
 VII 
 
 THE ADMIRAL'S HOLLYHOCKS 
 
 " You look as though you had seen a ghost, 
 Admiral," I called. We had the club library 
 to ourselves, but the admiral, sitting by a 
 window overlooking the avenue, did not 
 glance up from a dazed contemplation of the 
 service paper in his hand. 
 
 "I have," he answered so shortly that I 
 wondered, with resentment, if he thought I 
 was trying to pry into his affairs. I am not 
 a naval officer; but I know the admiral fairly 
 well. I've seen him at the club, almost daily, 
 during the eight or ten years since he was 
 retired from active service; I like him, too 
 although sometimes we don't quite under- 
 stand each other. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Admiral," I said 
 stiffly. I rather expected him to apologize, 
 but as he paid no attention, and sat staring 
 through the window, I took up my catalogue 
 
 again and wondered, with my annual wonder- 
 
 128
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 129 
 
 ment, why the flowers the seedmen advertise 
 are so different from the specimens my garden 
 produces 
 
 "Do you know anything about flowers?" 
 asked the admiral, so unexpectedly that I 
 forgot to show my offense at his earlier treat- 
 ment. 
 
 "Why, yes," I answered, getting up and 
 going over to a chair facing him; "they're 
 rather a hobby of mine." I held out the 
 catalogue. "I was just looking over the 
 spring lists. We've a big garden on our Long 
 Island place " 
 
 The admiral didn't seem to be listening. 
 His eyes were fixed on a show-window op- 
 posite, where a florist's assistant was busy 
 redecorating. 
 
 Presently he roused himself to say: "I 
 can't tell one flower from another except 
 hollyhocks ! My mother loved them; she 
 used to trade, and buy, and beg hollyhock 
 seeds." The admiral paused. "I don't often 
 see hollyhocks any more," he said. 
 
 "Well, no," I agreed, "they're out of 
 fashion. You rarely see hollyhocks in the 
 Long Island or Newport gardens. They're
 
 130 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 kind of unappealing, commonplace flowers, 
 and now that people don't have back fences 
 there isn't any place for them." 
 
 "Hollyhocks are the flowers of palaces and 
 the symbol of tragedy," asserted the admiral 
 with such sharp emphasis that I glanced 
 affrontedly at him. 
 
 "Well really I began, but he inter- 
 rupted me. "Have you travelled in China? 
 Not around the treaty ports but through 
 the inland cities?" And at my negative 
 answer he went on: "At Nanking are the 
 ruins of an imperial city of surpassing mag- 
 nificence. Palaces, bridges, and walls crum- 
 bling into dilapidation the aftermath of the 
 Taiping Rebellion. But every summer the 
 old courtyards are abloom with hollyhocks 
 as if the blithe ghosts of the court beauties 
 whose mutilated bodies choked the old moats 
 had come back to laugh at torture and death. 
 
 "And in the gardens of the Forbidden 
 City on the shore of the lake there is a 
 marble bench. The young emperor used to 
 sit there, hour after hour, hoping, fearing, 
 dreaming, planning for the future of his coun- 
 try.
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 131 
 
 "He's dead murdered but to-day, back 
 of his bench, the hollyhocks, a massed legion 
 of pink and crimson, still blossom against 
 the lacelike carvings of the marble wall 
 the flowers of palace gardens; the camp-fol- 
 lowers of disaster !" 
 
 The admiral paused. "It's forty-eight 
 years since I saw my first Chinese holly- 
 hocks," he said with wistful amazement, and 
 lapsed into silence. 
 
 "Were they connected with a tragedy ? I'd 
 like to hear about it if it wouldn't bore you," 
 I said humbly. I could have understood if 
 he had mentioned gardenias, or orchids, or 
 even gloxinias but hollyhocks ! 
 
 The admiral hesitated, and reluctantly 
 folded the service paper. "It isn't exactly 
 an amusing story," he said, and after a pause 
 commenced : 
 
 " Five of us went, a month after our grad- 
 uating exercises at the Naval Academy, to 
 the old Shenandoah in the Asiatic Squadron 
 Morgan, Rees, Tracy, Carter, and I. Car- 
 ter, the fun-loving, joke-making member of 
 our class, surprised us on Graduation Day 
 by quietly marrying the little Annapolis girl
 
 132 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 with whom he had been in love for over a 
 year. 
 
 "She came to the station the morning we 
 left, carrying some kind of charm for Carter 
 to wear around his neck. 'It will bring you 
 home safely/ she quavered forlornly, her 
 face red from crying. She must have been 
 all of seventeen ! 
 
 "We were weeks getting out to the Orient 
 and months cruising about until, in the 
 summer of the next year, we anchored at 
 Kiukiang for an overhaul period and to give 
 the men shore liberty. 
 
 "It was my first view of the Yangtze and 
 of the crowded, gray-walled river cities with 
 their ponderous, guarded gates. 
 
 "Kiukiang is one of these cities. Time 
 has touched it gently even the lacquered 
 doors of the great temple to Kwanyin, God- 
 dess of Mercy, on the river-bank overlooking 
 the city wall, show little sign of the passing 
 of the centuries. 
 
 "Near our anchorage, that morning forty- 
 eight years ago, a partly burned junk was 
 the centre of interest; the red boats of the 
 river police surrounded it and, from an open
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 133 
 
 sampan, some women raised a loud, insistent 
 wail of lamentation. 
 
 "Carter was officer of the deck; I over- 
 heard him, joining the ship's navigator, in 
 questioning the Chinese river-pilot who had 
 towed the Shenandoah to her anchorage. 
 
 ' How come ? ' inquired the navigator, 
 pointing toward the disabled junk. 
 
 : 'One-piecee pirate, catchee,' answered the 
 pilot gravely. 
 
 "' Where were the crew? One pirate 
 couldn't do all that!' objected Carter. 
 
 "The pilot wrinkled his forehead in puzzled 
 inarticulateness. 'One-piecee, all-same big 
 gang/ he explained; 'pirate never so bad be- 
 fore on Yangtze ! Catch-ee junk, kill-ee crew, 
 steal-ee cargo!' 
 
 "'What are the officials doing? Why 
 don't they get after the pirates?' asked the 
 navigator. 
 
 : ' Have try ! Polices-es try ! Top-side 
 mandarin try ! Viceroy try ! Then all-ee to- 
 gether try ! No can do ! Pirate every time 
 get away,' asserted the pilot vehemently, 
 then lowered his voice; 'you see' he pointed 
 toward the wreck 'junk number-one man
 
 134 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 go, last week, temple-side; tell Kwanyin 
 when him start. Tell her, very loud, of 
 much-ee money cargo; mak-ee ofFring. No 
 matter ! Kwanyin not hear; pirate catch-ee, 
 all-ee same-ee !' 
 
 'What are those women crying about ?' 
 asked Carter as a louder wail pierced the 
 air. 
 
 'Look-ee see if husbands still there/ 
 answered the pilot, and added, with the 
 fatalistic indifference of his race: 'Husbands' 
 bodies have float Woosung-side by now!' 
 
 " 'Poor devils !' said Carter. 
 
 "The pilot paused at the gangway-ladder. 
 'Never before such cruel worse pirates on all-ee 
 Yangtze,' he said as he disappeared. 
 
 "I joined the navigator and Carter and 
 asked : ' Do you believe in pirates ? I don't ! ' 
 'No,' answered Carter; 'all the books I 
 got for Christmas, when I was a kid, were 
 full of ghosts or pirates; the boy-buccaneer 
 always did them up, easily. But those 
 women find them real enough,' he added, 
 as the forlorn sampan-load swept by us. 
 
 "I glanced at the enticing near-by shore. 
 'I'm off duty this afternoon. When your
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 135 
 
 watch is over, let's go and see the town. 
 Tracy, Morgan, and Rees want to go, too/ 
 
 " ' Don't let the pirates catch you/ laughed 
 the navigator, turning away. 
 
 "That afternoon we had our first intimate 
 view of our first Chinese city with its crowded 
 roads and its busy, toiling people. 
 
 "And the shops ! Open to the street, and 
 apparently bare of any merchandise until 
 you asked; then, like a magician's trick, out 
 came the thick, lustrous silks, the colorful 
 embroideries. 
 
 "Carter had forsworn cigarettes months 
 before, and now the reason for his self-denial 
 was disclosed as he proudly acquired a length 
 of heavy, glittering brocade, while we stood 
 respectfully by. But later, when he paused 
 entranced before a tiny Chinese cap to be 
 worn by a baby at its first ceremonial, we 
 laughed uproariously. 
 
 : 'Getting ready for a dressy second child- 
 hood, Carter ?' teased Tracy. 
 
 "Carter flushed and mumbled an answer 
 which was interrupted by Rees's exclama- 
 tion: 'Listen to that temple-bell!' 
 
 " Boom ! rang the bell. Boom ! Boom !
 
 136 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 - boom ! Boom boom-boom. The clear, 
 reverberating notes seemed to linger in the 
 air. 
 
 ' It rings like a signal ! Must be part 
 of the temple service, but doesn't it sound 
 like a code ?' questioned Rees. 
 
 'Is there any reason why we shouldn't 
 go and see the temple and pagoda ? I can't 
 see why they'd object to our looking about; 
 at home, we're always glad to show strangers 
 our new Congregational Church,' vouchsafed 
 Tracy. 
 
 ' Except for the big additions to the store- 
 housey-looking buildings on each side, that 
 temple must have been a fossil when Christo- 
 pher Columbus was cutting his first tooth/ 
 commented Rees dryly; 'wonder what they 
 need so much storeroom for?' 
 "'Let's go and see,' I suggested. 
 "The temple was heavy and old and solid, 
 with large connecting storage-rooms for the 
 safe-keeping of the magnificent and valuable 
 adjuncts used in the temple's ceremonial 
 services. Outside, a slender, seven-storied, 
 memorial pagoda loomed high, overlooking 
 the river-valley for miles. Inside, on the dim
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 137 
 
 altar, a great golden Kwanyin gazed with 
 placid, unnoting eyes through the cloying 
 blue smoke from the incense-burners. In 
 charge were a young priest with cowed, half- 
 witted expression, and an old priest with a 
 sharp, cruel face and ugly, clawlike hands. 
 
 " * Those two spoil the whole thing/ grum- 
 bled Tracy, glowering at the old priest, whose 
 eyes, since we entered the temple, had never 
 left us. 
 
 "'I wonder which one rings the bell 
 and where is the belfry?' inquired Carter. 
 
 " 'Belfry!' ejaculated Rees, pointing. The 
 bell, twenty feet high, hung in a dim corner. 
 We went to examine it. 
 
 " 'That bronze is a foot thick and look 
 what they use for a clapper ! The trunk of 
 a tree swung on chains from a beam in the 
 ceiling strikes on the outer rim. No wonder 
 it echoes ! ' exclaimed Morgan. 
 
 "Rees touched the heavy chains. 'It's 
 balanced to work like a watch/ he admired, 
 and turned toward the old priest, who was 
 watching us. 'How do you strike that signal 
 we heard ? Is it part of the afternoon ser- 
 vice ?' he asked.
 
 138 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 "'He doesn't understand English, Rees/ 
 growled Carter. 
 
 "The priest came nearer and, half closing 
 his ugly eyes, demanded: 'What for you 
 want to know ?' 
 
 "We looked at him in startled silence. 
 
 "'What for you come here?' he asked 
 sharply, while his long, clawlike fingers moved 
 against his dirty robe. 
 
 " 'We came to see the temple and pagoda. 
 You have a wonderful view ! Nothing can 
 happen on the river that you can't watch 
 from here,' answered Tracy courteously. 
 
 "The priest drew a sharp breath through 
 his closed teeth; it sounded like the hiss made 
 by a snake that is coiling to strike. 
 
 "'You come gunboat! I know!' he 
 snarled; 'what for you come Kiukiang-side ? 
 What you want here ?' 
 
 "We looked at him in amazement. 
 
 'You keep away from Kwanyin's tem- 
 ple,' he ordered. 'No can come here!' and 
 hustled us out. 
 
 'What ailed him?' questioned Carter 
 explosively, as we made our way back to 
 the Shenandoah. 'Are you fellows going to
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 139 
 
 let him chase you away ?' questioned Rees con- 
 trarily. ' We'd better keep out of his temple, 
 but I'm going to the pagoda whenever I feel 
 like it ! It's a great place to watch everything/ 
 
 "It was. We went there every time we 
 were ashore, and as long as we loitered about 
 the pagoda the old priest did not notice us, 
 but any step toward the temple or around 
 the storehouses brought almost instant re- 
 sponse. One second he was nowhere in sight, 
 the next, 'What you want here?' sounded 
 shrilly beside us. 
 
 " 'Who'd want to smother inside that 
 smoky old temple when there's so much doing 
 on the river?' wondered Rees, idly watching 
 from the lowest pagoda platform the familiar 
 swarm of red police-boats gathered around 
 a big, disabled cargo junk. 'The pirates 
 bagged her last night, hardly a mile below 
 here,' he volunteered, and added: 'I'd like 
 to know where those cutthroats land their 
 loot before they dispose of it ?' 
 
 " 'Maybe the old priest thinks we are pi- 
 rates ! He couldn't always be on our trail, 
 as he is, if he wasn't keeping an eye on us,' 
 soliloquized Morgan.
 
 140 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 'I'm glad some one is interested. I call 
 Kiukiang pretty dull,' yawned Carter, glanc- 
 ing indifferently down the wide valley. Some- 
 thing attracted his attention. 'Say, fellows! 
 Look at that grove of trees on the river-bank 
 a half-mile outside the city wall. Can't you 
 see what seem like a lot of chimneys ?' he 
 questioned excitedly. 
 
 'They look like the chimneys of an Amer- 
 ican house!' asserted Morgan. 'Let's go up 
 higher and get a better view!' 
 
 "Recklessly we climbed the crumbling 
 circular stairs and came out on the pagoda's 
 highest platform. 
 
 'That is a real house ! Maybe some nice 
 girls live there. It isn't very far/ suggested 
 Rees. 
 
 : 'All the way up-hill through the city 
 and then along the shore in the sun,' com- 
 plained Tracy. 
 
 "Carter was leaning far out over the stone 
 balustrade. 'You needn't go up to the city 
 gate. There's a narrow, comparatively new 
 opening right back of the storehouse and a 
 path, nearly the whole way over to that house, 
 in the shadow of the wall/ he said quietly.
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 141 
 
 "We clung to the railing and looked where 
 he pointed. 
 
 "'Who'd use that path and gate?' won- 
 dered Morgan. 
 
 " 'We'll go over and find out/ said Carter, 
 leading the way. We followed and, rounding 
 a corner of the storehouse, came suddenly 
 upon the old priest emerging from a small 
 doorway. Beyond him the half-light showed 
 a big room piled high with bales, casks, and 
 boxes. The old priest turned; as his glance 
 rested on us his face grew livid with anger, 
 and, pulling the door sharply shut behind him, 
 he confronted us his ugly eyes half closed. 
 
 "'What for you come this side?' he de- 
 manded in a tone of snarling fury. 
 
 " 'We want to get out. I just discovered 
 this gate from the pagoda. Sorry if we startled 
 you,' explained Carter, as he opened the nar- 
 row, heavy postern. 
 
 ' I wonder why it wasn't locked the 
 gate ? And what kind of religious pageants 
 call for all the stuff he had stacked in that 
 storeroom?' questioned Tracy. 
 
 "'I can't understand why he has taken 
 such a dislike to us Listen to that bell!
 
 142 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 It must echo for miles up this quiet valley!' 
 exclaimed Rees as we followed the long path 
 across the moor and in between two granite 
 gateposts. 
 
 "'But this isn't a house it's a palace!' 
 cried Tracy, pausing. 'Look! What does 
 it say on that column ? It's a Chinese at- 
 tempt at English lettering.' 
 
 " 'The Hollyhocks,' read Rees slowly and 
 glanced about. 'There seems to be some 
 sort of garden on the river-bank. I can see 
 a lot of weather-stained stone benches. And 
 look at those porches, up-stairs and down, 
 connected by an outside staircase.' 
 
 "Hesitatingly we approached. All the win- 
 dow-panes were gone. 'Let's see the inside 
 of the house there's no one living here/ 
 proposed Carter, swinging himself over the 
 low sill. 
 
 "We explored the large wings a succes- 
 sion of enormous empty rooms and came 
 out finally into the wide hall that ran through 
 the centre of the house. 
 
 'Not a stick of furniture unless you 
 count these barrels and kegs,' said Tracy, 
 sitting down on one.
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 143 
 
 "'It's rather a pathetic place,' com- 
 mented Rees slowly. 'The man who had it 
 built was evidently trying to copy from mem- 
 ory some house he had loved at home, and 
 the Chinese workmen either stupidly or wil- 
 fully outwitted him. He's told them "wide 
 stairs" and look ! Those are at least four- 
 teen feet across and as steep as a ladder. I'm 
 sure, too, that he didn't order that foot-high 
 banister with the Chinese carved hand-rail.' 
 'Who ever built a house like this in such 
 a hidden, remote place ?' wondered Morgan. 
 ' Some poor duffer who had to clear out 
 of his own country. Must have done some- 
 thing pretty bad to need to hide so far off the 
 beaten track as Kiukiang,' answered Rees. 
 
 "Carter's investigations had led him to a 
 window overlooking the river and garden; 
 he gave a sudden exclamation. 'Come and 
 see the hollyhocks ! ' he cried. 
 
 "There they were pink, crimson, and 
 white; truants from the half-obliterated 
 flower-beds whose borders of dead box bushes 
 showed long neglect. But the hollyhocks 
 seemed visibly to rejoice in the misfortune 
 that gave them their liberty, for they swarmed
 
 144 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 up the slope in a blur of color, erect and defiant 
 in the hot sunshine. 
 
 "Carter continued his observations. 
 'There's some sort of little harbor dug into 
 the bank, and a sunken path/ he called back 
 from the veranda. 
 
 "Behind me a sharp hiss sounded. I 
 jumped, and, turning, confronted the old 
 priest, his face such a distorted mask of 
 malevolent fury that I stepped back appalled. 
 He asked his usual question, punctuating it 
 with a clawing gesture of his sharp, ugly fingers. 
 
 "'What you do here?' he demanded 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " 'Just looking around. Do you happen 
 to know who built this house?' inquired 
 Morgan with mystified politeness. 
 
 " 'Why you come here ?' snarled the priest. 
 
 "'Why shouldn't we come here? This is 
 an American house. We've more right here 
 than a Chinaman,' retorted Rees. 
 
 "'No b'long 'Melcan! B'long Scotsman, 
 allee-samee Englis-man,' asserted the priest 
 sharply. 
 
 "'Where is he the Scotchman?' de- 
 manded Carter with stern brevity.
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 145 
 
 " 'Him long time dead/ declared the priest 
 defiantly, and pointed to a low mound over 
 which the hollyhocks swept in a colorful 
 wave. 
 
 "The priest came a step nearer, his ugly 
 eyes gleaming between the half-closed lids. 
 'Scotsman not like strangers people! Like 
 only Chinaman/ he said harshly. 
 
 'How can he like anything if he's dead ?' 
 questioned Tracy with soothing literalness. 
 
 'H'm spee-rit come back/ whispered the 
 priest eerily. 'Come back ev'ry night!' he 
 asserted with guileful malevolence. 'Better 
 you go away not come again. Kiukiang 
 man not dare come this side !' 
 
 "Carter eyed him with amused tolerance. 
 'What's your game, padre?' he asked. 'If 
 the Kiukiangers are afraid it's because you've 
 used your job as priest to frighten them away 
 as you're trying to scare us ! I can't see 
 anything in this big, lonely, empty house to 
 make it worth your while.' 
 
 " I stepped hastily forward as the old priest 
 raised his hands toward Carter's face; his 
 voice rose to a frantic shriek. 
 
 'I know why you come Kiukiang-side/
 
 146 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 he snarled, and laughed with defiant mirth- 
 lessness. 'You no can do!' he taunted, 
 his voice husky with rage; 'now get out!' 
 he ordered. 
 
 " 'Get out yourself-' began Rees, but Car- 
 ter intervened. 'What's the use of making 
 him any madder than he is, Rees ? It's 
 nothing to us!' he said calmly, and turned 
 to the priest. 
 
 "'Cool down, padre,' he advised with 
 cheerful solicitude. 'No one wants to get 
 your riverside residence away from you. 
 But don't flatter yourself that you scared 
 us with that ghost-story.' 
 
 " ' Do you think there really is a ghost ? ' 
 I asked, as we went back toward the city. 
 
 "'I'd say no if we were at home but 
 this is China, and the Chinese are mortally 
 afraid of the spirits of their ancestors ! 
 They're always making offerings to propitiate 
 the dead and induce them to stay where they 
 are,' volunteered Morgan. 
 
 : 'Ghost-stories always begin by having 
 the person who is to see the ghost say, "I 
 don't believe in them," ' soliloquized Tracy 
 comfortably.
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 147 
 
 " ' If the ghost at The Hollyhocks comes 
 back, it's probably because he wants to see 
 his flowers/ I said with a little homesick 
 quiver in my voice. 
 
 "'Ghost nothing! That old Lothario of 
 a priest probably meets some Chinese Mary 
 Jane there, and he doesn't want his tryst 
 chaperoned/ laughed Carter. 
 
 ; 'I've always wanted to see a ghost/ ad- 
 mitted Rees reflectively. 'If I thought this 
 Chinese variety really comes back I'd go 
 there and stay until I'd seen it.' 
 
 'Ugh/ shivered Tracy, adding quickly, 
 'anyhow, you can't get to The Hollyhocks. 
 The city gates close at sundown.' 
 
 '"What are city gates to us?' questioned 
 Rees airily. 'There are always a dozen sam- 
 pans within hail of the ship; it wouldn't be 
 a half-hour's row.' He warmed to the ad- 
 venture. 'Let's go to-night ! Anything might 
 happen in China ! It would be an experience 
 to see a real ghost ! And if the old priest was 
 trying, for reasons of his own, to frighten us 
 away, we'll show him that his fairy-tale didn't 
 work ! ' 
 
 "Carter laughed and, at my look of sur-
 
 148 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 prise, explained rather lamely: 'I was just 
 thinking how foolish the old priest would 
 feel/ 
 
 Til go if the rest of you go but I 
 don't want to,' lamented Tracy. 
 
 "Carter eyed us speculatively. 'Bet you 
 won't do it this evening! Bet you'll back down 
 when it gets dark !' he teased incitingly. 
 
 'Bet we won't !' chorussed Rees, Morgan, 
 and I. 
 
 "'Aren't you coming, Carter?' asked 
 Tracy, grasping at a straw. 
 
 'I certainly am!' promised Carter with 
 disarming sincerity. I mistrusted his tone 
 he had played many a joke on me but I 
 could give no reason for my suspicions. 
 
 "We left the ship at half past eight that 
 night and Carter was not with us, for just 
 as we started, an orderly stopped him with 
 a message. 
 
 'The navigator would like Carter's help 
 in correcting a compass: it would take the 
 whole evening.' 
 
 "Carter turned back, after urging us to 
 go ahead. 'You seem to have lost your in- 
 terest in ghosts, Carter,' growled Tracy as
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 149 
 
 we boarded a sampan, while Carter, without 
 answering, leisurely watched us from the 
 Shenandoah's deck. 
 
 "I hated the whole adventure before we 
 even entered the house which loomed enor- 
 mously black and portentous under a starless 
 sky. We chose to stay in the large room at 
 the foot of the staircase ('ghosts always de- 
 scend the stairs/ volunteered Rees) because 
 of the barrel, which we used for a table, and 
 the kegs which served us as seats. We had 
 brought a couple of candles and a pack of 
 cards, and we started a game while we waited 
 for the promised visit of the punctual ghost. 
 
 "We played several cheerful rounds, while 
 the conversation swung from the Naval 
 Academy to our various home towns and out 
 across the Pacific to the Shenandoah and our 
 months of uneventful cruising. For unevent- 
 fulness this was proving a banner evening 
 except that Tracy won steadily at cards 
 hitherto an unknown proceeding for him. 
 Morgan did not like to lose; Tracy and he 
 had several arguments. 
 
 "I stifled a yawn. 'Are you fellows plan- 
 ning to stay after quarter to twelve ? I told
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 the sampan man to come back for me then; 
 I have the mid-watch. It's five minutes past 
 eleven now/ I said. 
 
 'I call this pretty dull/ grumbled Rees. 
 'We'd have had more fun in Kiukiang. Listen 
 to that racket !' 
 
 "From the distant city came the noise of 
 some kind of ceremony. We could hear the 
 clanging metallic crash of cymbals, the high, 
 shrill call of trumpets, the wailing of voices, 
 and, across it, like a great unhurrying pulse, 
 the temple-bell struck in a stately, measured 
 cadence. 
 
 'What's all the uproar about?' ques- 
 tioned Morgan. 
 
 'Probably the funeral services for the 
 men murdered on the junk/ I volunteered. 
 
 'Who ever heard of a funeral where they 
 didn't have a corpse ?' demanded Tracy. 
 
 'There's lots you haven't heard ! And, 
 besides, this is China/ asserted Morgan with 
 incontestable finality. 
 
 "The discussion ceased for lack of par- 
 ticipants. 
 
 "Rees listened thoughtfully. 'Sounds like 
 a signal that bell/ he commented.
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 151 
 
 " 'You say that every time you hear it 
 ring/ Tracy reminded him, and added : 'Whose 
 play is it ? ' 
 
 " 'Yours. You always hold up the game/ 
 answered Morgan with well-simulated resig- 
 nation. 
 
 "Tracy, with guilty haste, played a wrong 
 card; a heated argument ensued, stilled, 
 at its height, by Rees's startled question: 
 1 What was that?' 
 
 "From somewhere down the long hall- 
 way came the sound of a door swinging on 
 protesting hinges slowly, with complaining 
 deliberation, until it clicked shut. 
 
 'Wind/ explained Morgan uneasily. 
 
 " 'There isn't any wind/ Tracy answered 
 with unnecessary literalness. 
 
 'Then it blew shut without wind/ asserted 
 Morgan sharply. 'Your play again, Tracy/ 
 
 "We played for several minutes in silence, 
 then Rees spoke. 'Queer country!' he so- 
 liloquized, as he straightened the wabbling 
 candles. 'Think of the fellow who built this 
 house alone here, day after day, night after 
 night, fighting the solitude and the ghastly 
 silence !'
 
 152 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 "'Maybe the pirates dropped in some- 
 times and cheered him up/ I suggested flip- 
 pantly. 
 
 'He was dead before these pirates organ- 
 ized. The river-pilot told me this band began 
 operating on the Yangtze only six months 
 ago/ said Morgan. 
 
 " 'I don't believe that pirate yarn/ volun- 
 teered Tracy, and paused suddenly. 'What 
 was that ?' he whispered. 
 
 "From directly beneath us came the sound 
 of a heavy object stealthily rolled. 
 
 "Morgan jumped up. 'We are bright!' 
 he said with withering sarcasm. 'Did any 
 one notice, this afternoon, whether there is 
 a cellar under the house ?' 
 
 "None of us had. 
 
 'I'm not going to prowl around this huge 
 barracks looking for a cellar at this time of 
 night/ growled Tracy stubbornly. 
 
 'With only two half-burned candles for 
 four of us/ I supplemented. 
 
 "Morgan sat down and took up his cards. 
 'It was the echo from some river-boat/ 
 I explained in shamefaced apology. 'Your 
 deal, Tracy!' I added sharply.
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 153 
 
 " Morgan broke the ensuing silence. * Never 
 before was I in an empty house that didn't 
 seem empty; if I hadn't been all over it I'd 
 say this house was full of people,' he solilo- 
 quized complainingly, and stared, wide-eyed, 
 into the dark hall. 
 
 'We once had a colored cook named 
 Maud; she used to tell the awfullest ghost- 
 stories ! I can see her now rolling her 
 eyes and muttering, " What does I see ? 
 Bl o o d !" ' mimicked Tracy with pains- 
 taking attention to details. 
 
 r 'Anybody but you would have better 
 sense than to remember that story at such 
 a time as this,' growled Morgan irritably. 
 
 " 'Why shouldn't he remember it ?' I asked. 
 'Every sensible human being knows that 
 there can't be such a thing as a ghost ' I 
 stopped suddenly. Across the blackness of 
 the hall had there been the glimmering white 
 blur of a face ? 'It's the candle-light,' I tried 
 to reassure myself. 
 
 "Morgan's eyes were fixed intently on the 
 open window, and now he spoke in a low, 
 queer voice. ' I must say it's awfully odd 
 but I can't get over the feeling that people
 
 iS4 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 we can't see are watching us,' he remarked 
 disjointedly. 
 
 "I glanced toward the window. Outside, 
 through the empty sash, I could see the nearest 
 hollyhocks. They struck in me a chill sense 
 of alien treacherousness. I felt suddenly that, 
 masquerading as kin to the gentle flowers at 
 home, they had enticed me into something 
 sinister. Surely, the serene hollyhocks in 
 my mother's garden could not stand so de- 
 fiantly erect against the waning moon; and, 
 as I looked, the stalks bent sharply I held 
 my breath. The stalks jumped stiffly back 
 into place. Whatever had moved them was 
 creeping along the ground. 
 
 'What ails you ? Dropping your cards 
 all over the place !' demanded Rees. 
 
 "I gathered up my cards and played. 
 
 " 'Why doesn't some one talk ?' complained 
 Tracy fretfully. 
 
 'If you talked less and paid more at- 
 tention to your game ' began Morgan. He 
 stopped, his eyes narrowing intently; and I, 
 following his glance, saw nothing; but on 
 the veranda a board creaked with stealthy 
 slowness and, as I shut my teeth to keep
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 155 
 
 them from chattering, I fancied that I could 
 hear the muffled sibilant hiss of feet sliding 
 across the bare boards. 
 
 "Rees broke the silence. 'This is a queer 
 country; nothing happens the way you'd 
 expect it to ! Now, at home no one could 
 make me believe enough in ghosts to sit around 
 like this, and wait ! But here anything seems 
 possible/ He paused and eyed Tracy's fright- 
 ened face. 
 
 "Tracy moistened his lips. 'Just how do 
 you expect a Chinese ghost to act?' he in- 
 quired. 
 
 ''' ' Is there any stereotyped way for ghosts 
 to perform ?' asked Morgan sarcastically. 
 
 'Why, yes ! The books always say: 
 "Suddenly a cold wind swept across the 
 room," or, "Without warning, my hair, usu- 
 ally worn flat, stood straight up upon my 
 tingling scalp," ' recited Rees. 
 
 "Tracy interrupted. 'Our colored cook, 
 Maud, used to begin, "In the dark of the 
 moon," ' he mimicked sepulchrally, but Mor- 
 gan cut him short with: 'Can't you ever play 
 in turn ? Don't talk ! Play !' 
 
 "We played three hands in silence a
 
 i56 The AdmnTs Hofljrhocks 
 
 it was 
 
 fcM rf 
 
 . KK SMMCHT CQld tfec W2TIH
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 157 
 
 with imrr jsonnig terror, I realized tint Tracy, 
 
 _ " '-'; ; ' 1 ." 1 t ' t r ^ r". 't "t .' ^." '^.7.^'-*- ". " "_ 1 
 
 With an inarticulate shoot I cavgjit my toot 
 
 '.ri-'i '.'z'z.'^j r ,~- ~ -t -}"-? --'- "' 
 and, carrying it with mr, pitched 
 
 to the hal 
 
 "I moved; a sadden stab of 
 
 me. 
 
 "What had happened? Who had 
 for help : 
 
 "Where were Tracy, Morgan, and Rees? 
 Wkat kid I JaOoL ooer? Where had 
 running men been 
 
 they gone ? Why had they run ? Were they 
 
 i_ * xn_ t _i T _j i- v j 
 
 gbosts r What nan 1 done ID my bade wnen 
 
 I fell to make it hurt so abominably? Why 
 were the arm and side I was tying on so stMDy 
 damp? 
 
 "And then, quite raiMrnly, so near me 
 that I felt a shudder of sick, cold fear, I heard 
 a shadowy movement the 
 muffled whisper of a hand
 
 158 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 along the plastered wall. Very slowly it ad- 
 vanced paused lingered a perceptible time 
 above my head moved on hesitated died 
 away and stealthily returned, while I, lying 
 in a motionless crumpled heap, held my breath 
 and longed for the power to muffle the loud 
 beating of my heart. The ghostly sliding 
 hand came near, but now I knew that no 
 spectre wielded it, for a foot in a straw sandal 
 barely brushed my cheek, and from above 
 me came the sound of a little sharp, hissing 
 intake of breath. This time the groping hand 
 did not return. Silence closed down again. 
 
 "For a long while I lay motionless, afraid 
 to breathe, but as the slow seconds crept by, 
 the pain in my back grew to be unendurable. 
 Cautiously I shifted my arm, waited for the 
 paroxysm to subside, and, emboldened by the 
 unbroken quiet, agonizingly changed my posi- 
 tion. 
 
 'There was no answering sound. Little 
 by little, stopping when the pain was too 
 sharp, I laboriously raised myself on my 
 elbow, and felt for my match-box. 
 
 "A faint movement came from the hall 
 above; I stiffened into silence but nothing
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 159 
 
 happened, and after a perceptible time I 
 decided to try again. My match-box was 
 crushed under me, and as I drew it forth its 
 clammy adhesiveness came as a new cause 
 for aggrieved incomprehension, which deep- 
 ened into bewilderment when I tried to strike 
 a match and found it crumpling into un- 
 resisting limpness against the flabby box; 
 not until several useless matches had increased 
 my mystification did I have the success of 
 striking one into feeble light. 
 
 "At first it burned fitfully, but enough to 
 show that the wall near me was splashed 
 with curious dark stains. I glanced from 
 my damp sleeve and the discolored match- 
 box in my hand to where, around me, a widen- 
 ing pool of blood spread sluggishly across 
 the hall. Half sick with terror I turned upon 
 my elbow. Beside me, his limp, twisted 
 body half upon the stairs, his head turned 
 horribly back, his throat slit from ear to 
 ear dead lay Carter. I stared at the little 
 dangling charm that was to have brought 
 him 'safely home/ 
 
 "At the top of the stairs a group of men 
 with cruel, bestial faces crouched, motionless,
 
 160 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 behind the old priest whose talon-like fingers 
 curved hungrily as his eyes met mine. He 
 started forward. 
 
 "From the river-bank came a confusion 
 of sounds; then the navigator's voice raised 
 in an excited call: 'Carter ! Sheldon ! Where 
 are you, boys ? ' 
 
 "The men on the landing faded noiselessly 
 into the shadows. I could never prove that 
 I had really seen them. 
 
 "The rescuing party from the Shenandoah 
 examined the whole place," said the admiral 
 grayly. "They only found one clew: the 
 barrel and kegs we had used for a table and 
 seats during our card game were gone; other- 
 wise the house was as bare, as innocently 
 non-committal, as a sheet of still water, and 
 in the garden a legion of flaunting hollyhocks 
 raised unbroken, flowering stalks to greet the 
 dawn. 
 
 "The navigator, sitting among them on a 
 stone bench after the futile search, shook an 
 impotent fist toward the house, and spoke 
 brokenly. 
 
 "'Carter came to me just after you re-
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 161 
 
 turned to the ship yesterday afternoon, and 
 wanted me to help him play a practical joke. 
 My part was to send for him to come back 
 supposedly to fix a compass just as he was 
 starting with you last evening for The Holly- 
 hocks. 
 
 " 'I'm not enthusiastic over such jokes, 
 Carter/ I told him, but he laughed me down. 
 'They're going there really half expect- 
 ing to see a Chinese ghost!' he chuckled. 
 'The Hollyhocks is a big, lonely house, and 
 when they've been in it an hour they'll begin 
 to feel sort of spooky. I'll start about then 
 in another sampan, sneak up through the 
 garden, creep up those outside stairs, get in 
 through a window, and, after yelling and 
 making a racket over their heads, dash down 
 the stairs and guy them ! Can't you hear 
 old Rees trying for the rest of his days to 
 explain why he ran ? ' 
 
 "The navigator groaned remorsefully. 
 'Carter was late in starting the mail from 
 the States was put aboard by an up-river 
 steamer; it had been four months on the 
 way and Carter stopped to read his letters. 
 If only I had stopped him!' said the navi-
 
 162 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 gator with bitter emphasis. 'But how could 
 I know that he was going to jump into the 
 middle of the pirate gang ? When he yelled 
 to scare you they undoubtedly thought 
 he was one of the river-police summoning his 
 assistants; and the pirates would infinitely 
 prefer a fight to the death to being cap- 
 tured. 
 
 'The fact that you lads didn't prowl 
 about, and that Sheldon's fall knocked him 
 into silence, probably saved your lives. But 
 poor Carter The navigator covered his 
 eyes with his hand; then started up. 'Any- 
 how, we'll get the old priest,' he said tensely. 
 "But when, through our testimony, the 
 Chinese officials went to investigate the ac- 
 cumulation of bales and boxes in the temple 
 storehouses, they found the old priest with 
 stolid, unwavering eyes offering thanksgiving 
 before the altar of the Goddess of Mercy for 
 the miraculous preservation of her shrine 
 from the devastating fire that had, just be- 
 fore dawn, gutted the storerooms. Indeed, 
 even then the great, golden Kwanyin looked 
 with serene, uncognizant indifference through 
 a drifting cloud of smoke. Shortly afterward
 
 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 163 
 
 the old priest disappeared; I never heard 
 just how they disposed of him. 
 
 "The drastic measures taken by the Chinese 
 officials broke up piracy in that section for all 
 time. Since then pirates have flourished, in- 
 termittently, on other Chinese rivers, but 
 never in the Yangtze valley " 
 
 The admiral paused, and continued slowly: 
 
 "Blown down from the table to the deck 
 in Carter's cabin on the Shenandoah, Rees 
 found a letter: 'Your son, John Rowland 
 Carter, Junior, was born to-day/ The words 
 stared up as they straggled weakly across 
 the unfolded page. It had arrived the eve- 
 ning before but the date was four months 
 old." 
 
 The admiral unfolded the service paper he 
 held, and pointed to a paragraph in it. "Cap- 
 tain John Rowland Carter to command the 
 New Mexico" I read. 
 
 "You asked if I had seen a ghost ? I knew 
 that Carter's son had entered the navy, but 
 I had lost track of him the years pass so 
 swiftly ! And now he is forty-eight years old 
 and goes to command a dreadnought and 
 I am an old man!" The admiral smiled a
 
 164 The Admiral's Hollyhocks 
 
 wistful, pathetic smile and sat looking in- 
 tently at the crowded avenue. Across the 
 way the florist's assistant had finished his 
 task; the show-window was abloom with 
 the exotic lavender of hothouse orchids. The 
 admiral regarded them with uninterested 
 eyes. "I can't tell one flower from another 
 except hollyhocks; but I know them every 
 time" said the admiral, and lapsed into 
 silence. 
 
 I made several comments, but he did not 
 seem to want to talk any more. I was dis- 
 appointed ! You see, I've been through such 
 a lot of bother with my house, and more espe- 
 cially with my garden, that I wanted to know 
 whether he ever found out any more about 
 that Scotch fellow the one that had, orig- 
 inally, built and owned The Hollyhocks.
 
 VIII 
 THE DAY 
 
 WHEN representatives of foreign govern- 
 ments visit the United States it is customary 
 for our State Department, through the Secre- 
 taries of the Army and Navy, to order two 
 officers of junior rank to act as aides to each 
 visitor during his stay in this country. 
 
 To these aides falls the task of verifying 
 all engagements and of accompanying the 
 visiting dignitaries to all official and semi- 
 official entertainments given in their honor. 
 During the days of their stay an aide's wife 
 hears of her husband through the medium 
 of the daily papers; he is so busy that she 
 rarely sees him. 
 
 Perhaps because Lieutenant Gordon left 
 on a destroyer for England and the North 
 Sea patrol very soon after that Sunday at 
 Mount Vernon, his little son in the days 
 when the color faded from mother's cheeks 
 
 and her eyes grew big from scanning the 
 
 165
 
 The Day 
 
 newsless newspapers, or watching for in- 
 frequent letters used often to ask: "Tell 
 me about The Day that day on the May- 
 flower" 
 
 And when she had finished, and bedtime 
 was near, mother would say: "The great 
 Englishman and Frenchmen who put the 
 wreaths on General Washington's tomb were 
 Mr. Balfour, Monsieur Viviani, and General 
 Joffre; but I never heard the name of the 
 officer who talked to me longest. Now it's 
 time for prayers don't forget about the 
 little children like you, in France." 
 
 But when he had sleepily asked for father's 
 safe return, and droned out his A-men, mother 
 of these quieter days would say: "Go on, 
 Junior." 
 
 Drowsily he added: "Give . . . peace 
 ... in our time, Lord. . . . And take 
 not . . . thy holy spirit . . . from us." 
 
 Mrs. Gordon, sitting on the edge of a taxi- 
 cab seat, realized, as she drew near the navy- 
 yard gate, that the police were holding back 
 great crowds of people who overflowed into 
 the road at curbs and corners and peered
 
 The Day 167 
 
 expectantly into carriages and limousines. 
 Everywhere the air was full of the bright 
 flutter of waving flags. 
 
 Was it could it be possible that she, 
 the wife of a lieutenant in the navy, was 
 really going to this celebration about which 
 the newspapers from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific were telling their readers ? 
 
 She had never even dreamed of such an 
 opportunity, when her husband, who was 
 acting as aide to one of the visiting com- 
 missioners, had telephoned the evening be- 
 fore: "Mollie! What do you think? The 
 secretary has just asked me if you would 
 like to go down to Mount Vernon to-mor- 
 row on the President's yacht the Mayflower. 
 There's to be a ceremony at Washington's 
 grave, and about a hundred people are asked. 
 
 "I told the secretary you'd be only too 
 glad to go, and he gave me a card for you 
 to present at the navy-yard gate. Be there 
 by 12.45. . . . What ? ... Of course you 
 can leave Junior for one afternoon !" 
 
 Mrs. Gordon gave a happy sigh and looked 
 out of the taxicab window. The crowds 
 were greater; two limousines swept past
 
 168 The Day 
 
 into line ahead, slowing down to enter the 
 single-team gate of the navy-yard. There 
 a double line of marines, police, and secret 
 service men examined cards and scrutinized 
 the bearers. 
 
 "Straight ahead to the river then two 
 squares to the right," the sentry directed, 
 and they were off, down a wide paved road, 
 in the wake of a smart victoria; but not be- 
 fore Mrs. Gordon was conscious that from 
 the crowds far outside the gate there was 
 arising a faint, swelling cheer. 
 
 The taxi sped on, reached the water street, 
 swung round a wide circle, and slowing down, 
 crept on in fitful jerks, and stopped. The 
 door opened; Mrs. Gordon found herself 
 ascending the Mayflower's gangway, and at 
 the top shaking hands with the Secretary 
 of the Navy. 
 
 "I am Mrs. Gordon," she volunteered 
 shyly. 
 
 "Your husband isn't here yet he'll come 
 with the commissioner," said the secretary 
 kindly. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon walked to the rail where she 
 could watch the arriving guests; beyond her
 
 The Day 169 
 
 the band stood ready; side-boys awaited 
 the signal of a boatswain's mate; forward, 
 the sailors of the Mayflower s crew watched 
 silently. 
 
 Carriages and automobiles arrived inter- 
 mittently. Two admirals and a general in 
 uniform; four British officers in khaki; a 
 member of the cabinet, his wife and two 
 daughters; six French officers in light-blue 
 uniforms and red caps. Then a pause, and 
 a touring-car full of secret service men pre- 
 ceded a limousine; from it stepped a tall 
 man with a ruddy, kindly face and white 
 hair, who, as the band played the opening 
 bars of the English national anthem and 
 every one stood at salute, advanced up the 
 gangway holding his silk hat. Following, 
 came two officers and a younger man in the 
 uniform and the small peaked cap of the 
 Royal Flying Corps. 
 
 On deck the sentries presented arms, the 
 eight side-boys stood at attention, while 
 the boatswain's mate finished piping only 
 to begin again immediately as the band 
 swung into the "Marseillaise," and a small 
 man with dark hair and eyes followed the
 
 170 The Day 
 
 English commissioner up the sloping gang- 
 plank. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon, flushing with interest and 
 enthusiasm, leaned against the rail. "How 
 nice it is to be unimportant and not know 
 any one ! I don't have to miss a thing," she 
 thought happily. 
 
 A few more motors and carriages full of 
 officers in uniform and ladies in tailored suits 
 deposited their passengers at the gangway. 
 On deck people talked together, or were pre- 
 sented to the two officials. About one o'clock 
 came a lull in the arriving vehicles, and then, 
 far away, the rumble of a rising cheer that 
 grew nearer, swelled to great volume, and 
 suddenly stopped. 
 
 "That's the marshal! Now he's inside 
 the navy-yard gate," commented an officer. 
 
 People gathered at the rail; a group of 
 navy-yard workmen stepped forward and be- 
 gan to clap as three automobiles turned the 
 corner and sped up to the Mayflower. From 
 the first one the secret service men sprang out, 
 but from the second an officer in a blue coat, 
 red breeches, gold-embroidered cap, and 
 leather puttees descended smiling, saluted
 
 The Day 171 
 
 the sentries, and started up the gangway to 
 the strains of the French national anthem, 
 while on deck all officers stood at salute. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon leaned forward. Behind the 
 marshal some aides followed; then from the 
 third motor-car a man swung himself down 
 and with difficulty clambered up the slop- 
 ing walk. His uniform was blue; his tam-o'- 
 shanter cap sat rakishly on the back of his 
 head; but as the crippled legs carried him 
 haltingly up the gangway, his eyes, brave 
 and undaunted, beamed with an unquench- 
 able smile. 
 
 He would go walking agonizingly all his 
 days ! Mrs. Gordon felt blindly for her hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 ' ' Hulloa, Mollie ! What on earth are you 
 crying about ?" asked a cheerful voice. "Here, 
 wipe your eyes." Lieutenant Gordon, laugh- 
 ing, stood beside her and offered his hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 "When did you come aboard? I didn't 
 see you ! But, oh, that lame officer the one 
 that smiles/' she exclaimed. 
 
 "The Chasseur Alpine ? Don't cry about 
 him ! His spirit is forty feet high, and has
 
 172 The Day 
 
 wings. Besides, he says that the best part 
 of him is American that's his artificial leg." 
 
 Mrs. Gordon choked. "I could bear it 
 better if he wasn't so cheerful," she said. 
 
 "We're off! Let's go down and get some- 
 thing to eat while I'm not needed. I'll have 
 to leave you to shift for yourself after lunch- 
 eon and at Mount Vernon," explained Lieu- 
 tenant Gordon as they joined the group mov- 
 ing toward the companionway. 
 
 Lowering his voice, he added: "Don't be 
 afraid to talk with any one who speaks to 
 you. Foreigners don't bother about intro- 
 ductions like Americans. The fact that you're 
 both at the same party is enough for them. 
 Just forget about being shy, Mollie." 
 
 Mrs. Gordon was saved from answering 
 by the crowd that engulfed them at the door 
 of the dining-cabin. It was a "stand-up" 
 luncheon and she waited while her husband 
 helped the other men to distribute plates 
 or juggle with cups and glasses. 
 
 "Here, Mollie," he said, bringing her some 
 salad. "I'll be back in a minute yes, sir- 
 he turned quickly, and Mrs. Gordon, glanc- 
 ing up, met the kindly smile of the great
 
 The Day 173 
 
 marshal and saw the hand outstretched from 
 the many-starred cuff. 
 
 "I have pleasure to tell you, Madame Gor- 
 don, how expediently your husband looks 
 out for us/' said the marshal in French; and 
 she stammered a few words of thanks. But 
 after he had passed on Mollie Gordon care- 
 fully removed her white glove and put it 
 in her pocket. "If only I can remember 
 every little thing about to-day to tell Junior, 
 when he's old enough to understand !" she 
 thought earnestly. 
 
 Afterward, sitting alone on deck, she 
 watched the shore, lovely in its springtime 
 green, slide by, and overheard scraps of con- 
 versation. 
 
 The bird-man was enlarging on the joys 
 of flying to a lady who owned to an unreason- 
 ing terror when looking down from high 
 places. 
 
 "It makes me dreadfully ill," said the 
 lady plaintively. 
 
 The aviator was cheerful. "When you 
 get up six thousand feet you wouldn't mind. 
 Of course sometimes when you turn quickly 
 and one wing stands vertically above your
 
 174 The Day 
 
 head, and you look straight down the other 
 wing onto the roofs of a town below, you 
 mightn't like it," he explained. 
 
 The lady gasped. "If I was as ill in 
 proportion when I was up six thousand feet 
 as I am when I'm up six stories . . ." she 
 commenced, and shuddered, "you can't 
 imagine just how ill I am," explained the 
 lady. 
 
 On the other side of Mrs. Gordon a girl 
 tried in halting French to explain the time- 
 honored story of Washington and the dollar 
 that was skipped across the Potomac. 
 
 "C'est une joke Americaine," she told the 
 puzzled Frenchman. "Nous disons: une 
 dollar went quatre temps as far, dans those 
 jours." 
 
 The officer looked grave. "Then costs of 
 living have been of a height always, in your 
 country ? Potatoes, four dollars a bushel- 
 in the days of Washington!" he exclaimed, 
 and shook his head at the lovely shore of 
 this incredibly expensive land. 
 
 The news of the Mayflower's coming had 
 preceded her; every tiny pier or anchored 
 boat seemed filled with cheering people, until,
 
 The Day 175 
 
 at last, on a long stretch of river road they 
 saw the black mass of many parked auto- 
 mobiles and heard the shrill roar of their horns. 
 
 A French officer leaning against the rail 
 turned and spoke directly to Mrs. Gordon: 
 "A picnic?" he asked, and pointed toward 
 the motors. 
 
 Perhaps because the eyes under the red 
 cap were both sad and gentle Mrs. Gordon 
 forgot to be shy. 
 
 "Oh, no," she answered; "they've come to 
 see the Mayflower and you officers go past." 
 
 The Frenchman looked astounded. "It is 
 long since I have seen people who go as they 
 like, when they wish," he said, and looked 
 at the noisy cars, until a turn in the river 
 hid them. 
 
 Leaving the rail he sat down by Mrs. Gor- 
 don: "Your people I think they do not 
 realize how bad it is in my country," he 
 said sadly. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon felt suddenly sorry for him. 
 "You see, we only read about it," she ex- 
 plained, "and, of course, the newspapers ex- 
 aggerate so often that you never can tell if 
 what you read is true."
 
 176 The Day 
 
 She paused. "Some of the things have 
 been so dreadful that they couldn't be true. 
 I wont believe them," said Mrs. Gordon. 
 
 "They couldn't tell all the truth nor a 
 quarter of it,'* said the Frenchman bitterly. 
 
 "But, of course, burning villages, and fight- 
 ing, and all the terrible things that have 
 happened are war," said Mrs. Gordon hesitat- 
 ingly. "People tell of horrors, but they 
 always finish by saying that they've read 
 of it, or some one has told them. And the 
 stories grow with each repetition." 
 
 The Frenchman looked at her. "I have 
 seen" he said; "but you perhaps the suffer- 
 ing of women or little children seems to you 
 justified by war ?" 
 
 Mrs. Gordon flushed. "No," she answered 
 gently; "if only things are true I want to 
 sympathize and help with all my strength. 
 But does anything justify war ? How I hate 
 it ! " she cried. 
 
 The officer was silent; then as if rousing 
 himself from painful thoughts he spoke slowly: 
 "Until war was declared I had lived all my 
 life in what is now the invaded portion of 
 France. Our chateau stood on the rising
 
 The Day 177 
 
 ground above a small village; it has seen 
 many armies pass, has looked upon much 
 unhappiness, and known dark times during 
 the long years. 
 
 " Do you know the old chateaux of France, 
 madame ? 
 
 "White walls, mullioned windows, sharply 
 slanting roofs, pointed towers and the old 
 gardens ! All very dear to you when they 
 have belonged also to your father's father. 
 
 "And every acquisition or addition the 
 new wing, some coveted acres of farm land 
 one makes sacrifices gladly that one's grand- 
 children may say: 'That my father's father 
 secured/ or 'The wing was built during the 
 reign of Louis XIII.' 
 
 "My home was like that; very old, very 
 serene, very beautiful above its sloping 
 gardens where peacocks sunned themselves 
 among the flowers. 
 
 "Ahead the years stretched in happy 
 promise for us my young wife, my little 
 son, and I in our home. 
 
 "That is over. 
 
 " If peace were declared to-morrow it would 
 make no difference."
 
 iy8 The Day 
 
 He paused, and looked at the grassy shore 
 smiling in the spring sunshine. 
 
 "This is like a dream to me," said the 
 French officer. 
 
 He raised his tired eyes eyes through 
 which a suffering soul asked "why" of an 
 unanswering universe. 
 
 "Perhaps the other is just a nightmare 
 from which I shall waken to find everything 
 as before?" he asked pitifully, and shivered 
 in the warm air. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon sat very still. 
 
 "You are kind to listen," said the officer. 
 "Somehow, as I look at your happy people 
 I feel that they do not even faintly realize 
 how very bad it is in my country, and I want 
 to shout to them of our women and of our 
 little suffering children. . . . 
 
 "I joined my regiment on that August 
 day, nearly three years ago; my wife stayed 
 in her home, bravely bidding me farewell, 
 and telling me that she could very well look 
 out for the farms and the peasant women 
 in the village. . . . 
 
 "How clearly half-forgotten details return 
 when life means one long remembering. . . .
 
 The Day 179 
 
 "We had in our hamlet an old woman 
 crazed since those days in '70 when she saw 
 her young husband slain Joan her name, 
 quite harmless she was, and very old; those 
 who may not think, live long is it not so, 
 madame ? And always old Joan carried 
 with her the musket and ammunition pouch 
 of her dead husband. So usual on summer 
 evenings was the sight of her walking up and 
 down, the gun over her shoulder, that even 
 the children gave no attention to her. . . . 
 
 "On the day when I left to join my regi- 
 ment she appeared at the long window of 
 the morning-room, her eyes blazing, her 
 shrunken figure miraculously tall, and point- 
 ing to my wife and child bade me bid them 
 good-by. 
 
 'You go!' she cried shrilly, and dropped 
 her voice to a fearful whisper; 'they come 
 like waves of the sea, or leaves of the forest- 
 trees driven before a wind. I ... can hear 
 them ! Bid her . . . and your son . . . fare- 
 well.' 
 
 "Lifting the old musket she seemed to 
 listen; moaning she turned away. 
 
 ' Poor soul ! The gossip of the village
 
 180 The Day 
 
 has brought back to her dim mind memories 
 of the old days. I must take care of her,' 
 said my wife. 
 
 "My wife ... if I had known, as I bade 
 her au revoir, would I ... could I ... have 
 left her ? 
 
 "Almost at the first our hamlet was sud- 
 denly surrounded and taken. No message 
 or letter ever reached me during the long 
 months; I have known what it is to suffer, 
 madame, but my imagination was too feeble 
 to picture what had really happened. 
 
 "Twice the enemy have occupied our village 
 once advancing, once retreating and at last 
 came a day when I could again visit it. ... 
 
 "I could hardly find it. ... 
 
 "Only by the roofless ruins of the church 
 could I tell. My home lay a tangled mass of 
 twisted iron and jagged granite, where al- 
 ready the trampled trellises of climbing roses 
 were sending long tendrils over the piles of 
 masonry. 
 
 "In the village no house remains only 
 sometimes a whitened skeleton, bleaching in 
 the sun and rain, among the crumbling bricks 
 . . . and living in the ruins of the. .church, our
 
 The Day 181 
 
 old cure, like a hunted animal . . . fearing 
 the light of day. When he saw me he cov- 
 ered his face with his shaking hands. 
 
 "I hardly knew my own voice as I asked 
 
 him: 'My wife and baby ?' 
 
 'Dead/ he whispered, 'long dead/ 
 
 "Little by little he told me the story: 
 When the peasant women found escape im- 
 possible they fled with their children to our 
 chateau. Old Joan and the cure followed. 
 Very soon officers of the enemy came, de- 
 manding quarters, in voices both suspicious 
 and brutal. My wife faced them calmly. 
 
 " 'We are but women in this house; our 
 young children are in the rooms above. Of 
 food there is very little/ she told them. 
 
 "But already the older officer was look- 
 ing closely at her; very young and fair, she- 
 seemed, against the faded tapestries of the 
 hallway. On the landing behind her the 
 peasant women were suddenly very still, and 
 the cure, seeing the officer's leering glance, 
 feared for her, and stepped forward. 
 
 { "I am the priest of madame's church/ 
 he said; 'perhaps if you will tell me what is 
 needed '
 
 1 82 The Day 
 
 "Cursing, the officer turned and shouted 
 an order; violent hands were laid upon the 
 cure who is old and he was hustled out- 
 side; but even as he went a scream from the 
 women on the stairs made him turn his head 
 and shout a warning. Above, on the high 
 balcony, crazy Joan, attracted by the noise, 
 had watched and listened; then, with care, 
 levelled and fired the old musket. . . . 
 
 "My wife fell. Only in her brave, agonized 
 eyes could you read the terror voiced in the 
 whispered words: 'My baby!' 
 
 "The officer hardly noticed her; he was 
 beside himself with anger and fear. 
 
 'That shot was meant for me! We'll 
 teach these women better than to shoot at 
 His Majesty's officers,' he shrieked. . . . 
 
 "Of what happened to the living women 
 the cure refused to speak. Hiding his face 
 in his shaking hands he could only weep 
 the difficult tears of age and terror. 
 
 'But the children,' I cried, 'the weak, un- 
 offending children. . . . ?' 
 
 "Tears coursed down the cure's face. 
 
 'They were locked in that upper room 
 those who did not starve to death, perished
 
 The Day 183 
 
 in the bombardment of the chateau, for the 
 soldiers looted and fired on it as they were 
 going,' said the cure. 
 
 "... Before I left him we went together 
 into the ruined, roofless church, and as I 
 turned from the empty holes that had been 
 the great windows, to where above the high 
 altar the crucifix hung, I started back in 
 horror. They had hacked the carven Christ 
 from the cross, and nailed in his place a black 
 cat; everywhere . . . blood-stains showed 
 how the poor animal had pitifully tried to 
 tear itself free. . . ." 
 
 The officer paused; the knuckles of his 
 clinched hand showed white against the blue 
 of his uniform, his voice dropped to a whisper: 
 "Those people have no mercy on women, 
 children, or dumb beasts nor any fear of 
 God/' he said, and the look of suffering came 
 back into his heavy eyes. " But whenever I 
 am alone when I waken in the night, or 
 stand in the quiet of your peaceful coun- 
 try . . . she calls to me my wife. And 
 plainly I can hear the pitiful wail of a starv- 
 ing, wounded baby . . . and know that it is 
 
 . mine."
 
 1 84 The Day 
 
 He stopped and looked about dazedly. 
 "Forgive me, madame," he said, "I have 
 no right ... to burden you with my sor- 
 rows. But what is this ?" 
 
 The ship's bell had commenced to toll. 
 
 "We are passing Washington's tomb," 
 said Mrs. Gordon; about them every person 
 was rising to their feet. Slowly and sweetly 
 the bugle sounded taps; clearly it echoed 
 across the placid river to where, on the hill- 
 side, a white house gleamed in the serene 
 sunshine; below it showed the roof of the 
 simple vault of brick wreathed in ivy and 
 blossoming wisteria, and surmounted on this 
 day by the flags of England, France, and 
 America. 
 
 On the deck of the Mayflower statesmen 
 and officers stood with bared heads or at sa- 
 lute while the strains of "The Star-Spangled 
 Banner" rang out across the waiting launches, 
 and echoed back from the hillside dotted 
 with the white-and-pink of blossoming trees. 
 
 And later, when Mrs. Gordon had listened 
 to the short martial speeches and had seen 
 the English and French representatives pass 
 under the lifted grating to lay upon the tomb
 
 The Day 185 
 
 a great circle of lilies and oak leaves, and 
 the bronze wreath and palm-branches con- 
 secrated by long usage to the heroic French 
 dead, she stood for a few minutes to look 
 silently, absorb, and remember always every 
 detail pertaining to this historic afternoon, 
 and noticed for the first time a marble slab 
 let into the wall above the tomb. 
 
 "I am the resurrection and the life." 
 
 The beautiful words come deathlessly down 
 the years; but most often he who spoke 
 them urged pity for the oppressed, and al- 
 ways, with insistence, he demanded kindness 
 to little children. 
 
 Mrs. Gordon felt a sudden tightening in 
 her throat; all the glamour of this wonderful 
 day was swept aside by an overwhelming 
 wave of longing for her quiet home, her hus- 
 band, and her baby. 
 
 But through a blur of tears she saw the 
 flags of France, England, and America waving 
 together over the tomb of Washington, and 
 knew that the road along which women shall 
 go until "wars shall cease" was to be hers 
 already her feet were set on its tortuous path- 
 way.
 
 IX 
 HOLDING MAST 
 
 FROM the register of the United States 
 Navy the wooden ships are gone, with John 
 Paul Jones y Decatur, and Farragut, to some 
 serene harbor beyond the most distant hori- 
 zon line, and of the ship life of their day but 
 one custom persists. 
 
 It was the rule on those old sloops of war 
 that any sailor under arrest, awaiting sen- 
 tence and having a complaint to make or a 
 grievance to air, took his stand by the main- 
 mast, and asked to speak with the captain; 
 this was his right. 
 
 The white sails are gone. On our great 
 steel ships no sign of them remains, but every 
 day, at a given hour, on each dreadnought, 
 battleship, cruiser, and destroyer of the United 
 States Navy the captain "holds mast." 
 
 Seven bells. 
 
 On the quarter-deck of the gray dread- 
 nought anchored in the harbor the morning 
 
 186
 
 Holding Mast 187 
 
 sunlight gleamed on a little group of sailors 
 and petty officers who, as "witnesses," 
 gathered and formed in line for the morn- 
 ing's mast. 
 
 Around the great triple gun-turret the 
 master-at-arms marched the prisoners, two 
 by two, and lined them up at right angles 
 with the witnesses. 
 
 "Don't be forgettin' that you steps for- 
 ward and takes off your cap when your 
 name's called, and don't look scared to death 
 there ain't no can-o-bulls present," ad- 
 monished the master-at-arms. "Say what 
 you've got to say, and when you're ordered 
 to 'stand aside,' put your cap on and step 
 back into line. This ain't no trial ! It's just 
 a chance for you to tell your side of things." 
 
 The prisoners eyed him silently, except 
 one youth who inquired of his neighbor in 
 a surly whisper what was "th' use of tellin' 
 the captain anything ? Nuthin' happens to 
 him like happens to us!" then transferred 
 their attention to the yeoman with the re- 
 port book, who took his place just as the 
 executive officer crossed the deck and knocked 
 at the door of the captain's cabin.
 
 i88 Holding Mast 
 
 "Mast is ready, sir," announced the execu- 
 tive, and waited, while the captain finished 
 signing some papers and took up his cap. 
 
 "I've gone over the case of that fellow 
 who takes drugs," said the executive; "we've 
 done all we can for him. The doctor says 
 it's no use he hasn't the backbone to quit; 
 let him go ashore, and the same thing hap- 
 pens. Big mast this morning; but the other 
 cases are the usual things." 
 
 The captain nodded. "I suppose when 
 you have one thousand and thirty men, of 
 the average age of twenty-one years, you 
 can expect a fair amount of ingenuity for 
 getting into trouble," he remarked as, fol- 
 lowed by an orderly, they stepped out on 
 the quarter-deck. 
 
 "Attention! Salute!" commanded the 
 master-at-arms to the prisoners. 
 
 The captain returned the salute and, paus- 
 ing, scanned the yeoman's report book. 
 "Carry on," he said. 
 
 "Mark Simmons. Reported by the officer 
 of the deck for overstaying liberty eight 
 hours," read the yeoman. 
 
 The captain looked carefully through the
 
 t 

 
 Holding Mast 189 
 
 record. "First report against you in the 
 three years you've been on this ship, Sim- 
 mons. What kept you ?" 
 
 The sailor shook his head. 
 
 "Were you drunk?" asked the captain. 
 
 Again the dumb head-shake. 
 
 "Anything to say?" suggested the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 "No, sir," answered Simmons faintly. 
 
 The captain hesitated, then turned away. 
 
 "James Collins. Charged with being asleep 
 while on duty. Reported by the boatswain's 
 mate in charge of the watch," read the yeo- 
 man. 
 
 The boy stepped forward and took off his 
 cap. 
 
 "Sleeping on duty, Collins ? What ailed 
 you ?" asked the captain. 
 
 "Nuthin', sir," the sailor answered. "This 
 is my first cruise, and I just can't hold me 
 eyes open went to sleep standin' right up 
 straight ! I ain't never been near the ocean 
 before, and I'm perishin' to sleep all the 
 time." 
 
 "If every man went to sleep when he felt 
 like it how long do you think this ship would
 
 190 Holding Mast 
 
 last?" asked the captain. "I'll have to give 
 you a summary court, Collins, and remember 
 this : if ever you are given an important post 
 in war-time, and you sleep on it, you are 
 liable to receive the severest punishment that 
 can be inflicted." 
 
 "Stand aside," the master-at-arms ordered. 
 Collins stepped back into line. 
 
 "Thomas Jenkins, Carl Jones, coal-passers, 
 reported by the water-tender for fighting," 
 read the yeoman. 
 
 "What were you fighting about?" asked 
 the captain. 
 
 Jenkins, burning with righteous wrath, 
 answered: "Every time I gets the bright 
 work all shined up, he comes in and turns 
 on the steam ! Says 'he's tryin' out the 
 valves,' and when I asks him why don't he 
 try 'em out when the brasswork's dirty he 
 laughs!" 
 
 "Well, Jones?" asked the captain. 
 
 Jones grinned unhappily. "Get tired o' 
 seein' him forever at his polishin' thought 
 I'd give him something to polish for. He hit 
 me first," asserted Jones, grasping at a straw. 
 
 The witness interrupted.
 
 Holding Mast 191 
 
 "They fights all the time," he volunteered 
 virtuously. "I seen them fightin' the other 
 day because Jenkins told Jones that no man 
 that had red hair could ever be a good en- 
 gineer. Said the admiral said so." 
 
 Jenkins flushed. "Aw, can't you take a 
 joke ?" he growled. 
 
 "How old are you, Jenkins, and you, 
 Jones?" asked the captain, and smiled at 
 the answers of "twenty." 
 
 "You can punish them this time by letting 
 them shake hands for an hour on the quarter- 
 deck," said the captain. 
 
 "Next," commanded the executive, and a 
 white-faced man stepped forward in answer 
 to the name of William Clark. 
 
 "Reported by the master-at-arms for tak- 
 ing cocaine," read the yeoman. 
 
 The captain glanced sharply at the trem- 
 bling hand raised to remove the white cap. 
 
 "Is this true ?" he asked. 
 
 The man nodded miserably. 
 
 "How and where did you form this habit ?" 
 asked the captain. 
 
 "I got to going with a crowd in Harlem 
 three years ago, and some of the girls took
 
 192 Holding Mast 
 
 the stuff said it was great and wanted me 
 to try it,'* said Clark in a low voice. "I en- 
 listed to get away from them and quit it; 
 but every time I go ashore I just can't help 
 buying it." 
 
 The captain's face clouded, but his voice 
 was kind. 
 
 "I'm sorry for you, Clark," he said. "Un- 
 less you are man enough to break this habit 
 and start fresh, there isn't any future for you 
 anywhere. We can't keep you here. The 
 navy isn't a reform school, and nothing spreads 
 like a bad habit. I wish I could help you; 
 but this is the time when you must help your- 
 self. Cocaine is the entrance ticket to the 
 insane asylum and to the gutter and to 
 nothing else." 
 
 The list proceeded. "Smoking out of 
 hours" was the most popular cause for getting 
 on the report, although overstaying liberty, 
 while communing with long-lost friends from 
 other ships, ran it a close race. 
 
 One exuberant youth, reported for "con- 
 tinued spitting on the deck," announced 
 belligerently that he "couldn't work if he 
 couldn't spit"; another frankly admitted an
 
 Holding Mast '193 
 
 aversion for vaccination; while a third vo- 
 ciferously defended his pastime of "sleeping 
 in a life-boat" when he should have been 
 working. 
 
 Stealing, the most contemptible sin in 
 the community life aboard ship, was severely 
 dealt with. The last case was finished. 
 
 "No more reports," announced the yeo- 
 man, closing the book and bundling his papers 
 together. 
 
 "Attention!" commanded the master-at- 
 arms to the prisoners. 
 
 The captain started across the deck toward 
 his cabin, paused, and returned. 
 
 "Simmons one moment," he said to the 
 first prisoner. 
 
 The sailor stepped forward and lifted his 
 heavy eyes to the captain's face. 
 
 "What is it, Simmons ? Something you are 
 afraid to tell ?" asked the captain. 
 
 " My wife, sir," said the boy, and swallowed 
 hard. "The baby came yesterday morn- 
 ing. . . . We had a civilian doctor . . . 
 but he was drunk ! They know we navy 
 people haven't much money and aren't here 
 long ... so they think it don't matter how
 
 194 Holding Mast 
 
 they treat us. ... I did all I could . . . 
 but she had kind of chills. ... I came back 
 as soon as I dared leave her." 
 
 His shoulders shook; he leaned his face 
 against his blue sleeve. 
 
 "Good Lord, man! Why didn't you tell 
 that to the officer of the deck when you came 
 aboard ? Is any one with your wife ? Is her 
 home in this city ?" demanded the captain. 
 
 "She's all alone in a lodging-house. Her 
 folks live in San Francisco," answered Sim- 
 mons. 
 
 The captain turned. "Ask Doctor Knapp 
 to come here," he said to the orderly. And 
 to the master-at-arms : "Erase that report 
 against Simmons; he's going ashore with the 
 doctor." 
 
 "Ay, ay, sir!" said the master-at-arms; 
 he turned and faced the prisoners: "Right 
 about! Forward march!" he commanded. 
 
 Eight bells struck. 
 
 Above their clanging clamor came the clear 
 notes of a bugle sounding mess-gear, and 
 from the deck below arose a great clattering 
 of plates. The band, which plays every 
 day during the crew's dinner-hour, sailed val-
 
 Holding Mast 195 
 
 iantly into the opening bars of the "Anvil 
 Chorus"; factory whistles in the near-by city 
 shrieked their noonday greetings above the 
 deep boomings of bells. 
 
 "My wife's been alone for five hours," 
 said Simmons miserably. 
 
 Late that night the captain finished his 
 writing and went over the doctor's report. 
 
 Mrs. Simmons and the baby had been 
 moved to a hospital and were comfortable. 
 Simmons, tremulous with gratitude, had re- 
 turned to the ship and was sleeping the sleep 
 of exhaustion, two decks below. 
 
 The captain leaned back in his chair. Fac- 
 ing him, on the shelf above, a woman smiled 
 from a photograph an old photograph, judg- 
 ing by the enormous sleeves and diminutive 
 hat. How clearly he remembered the day 
 that photograph was taken just before he 
 started on a Pacific cruise. 
 
 How they had laughed, and hoped, and 
 planned even to deciding on the college which 
 "junior" should eventually honor by his pres- 
 ence, with Wellesley as an alternative, if fate 
 should prove disobliging.
 
 196 Holding Mast 
 
 "All was well" when he had cabled from 
 Valparaiso; and even if he had worried dur- 
 ing those days of cruising through the Straits 
 of Magellan he had been pitifully unprepared 
 for the cablegram awaiting him at Mon- 
 tevideo. Five words ! Yet they told him 
 that never again would he need to hurry 
 home. . . . 
 
 The captain sighed. For a second the 
 port-hole framed the stretching road of the 
 long years; but somewhere, around a little 
 turn, she would be waiting for him, the 
 baby in her arms 
 
 The captain smiled back at the photo- 
 graph and, ringing for the orderly, switched 
 off the desk lights.
 
 THE WALL 
 
 'THEY have a palace with over three 
 hundred rooms that, with the gardens, takes 
 up a half-mile square. The old prince, his 
 eight sons, and their wives and children live 
 there. They have Eurasians, from the mis- 
 sion, to teach the children English; but I 
 guess you'll be the first foreigner who ever 
 got nearer than the wall. It's the real thing 
 in walls!" asserted the Scotch captain of 
 the Yangtze River steamer when Mrs. Allen 
 told of her engagement and asked for direc- 
 tions. 
 
 And Marjorie Allen, rattling over the un- 
 even road in a ricksha, agreed with him; the 
 wall built of huge blocks of stone towered 
 ten feet over her head, the bronze coping 
 giving out sharp gleams in the afternoon 
 sunshine. 
 
 "If Elsie Marvin could be dropped down 
 here!" thought Marjorie, whimsically re- 
 membering Elsie's exasperated remonstrances 
 
 197
 
 198 The Wall 
 
 at receptions or dances in Washington, fif- 
 teen years before: "Why are you always 
 bothering with that Chinese girl ? She's 
 stiff as a poker and stupid as an owl ! Being 
 at the embassy doesn't mean anything she 
 probably runs a laundry at home. You'll 
 never go to China. . . . Why do you bother 
 to be nice to her?" 
 
 "Poor Elsie wasn't a good judge of people," 
 sighed Marjorie Allen, leaning forward to 
 see the great gate revealed by a turn in the 
 narrow road. 
 
 A servant, leaning against the massive 
 barrier screening the opening, came forward. 
 "Miss-ses Al-len?" he asked, and at her an- 
 swering nod turned and shouted. Twice he 
 repeated it before his voice penetrated the 
 indescribable din, and the ponderous gates 
 swung slowly back. 
 
 Marjorie Allen hesitated at the scene dis- 
 closed. 
 
 Piles of luggage, scores of servants, a heavy 
 travelling-carriage with horses, a vermilion- 
 lacquered chair and bearers, carved and gilded 
 chests mingled in chaotic confusion; while 
 mafoos and coolies lounged or, oblivious to
 
 The Wall 199 
 
 the uproar, slept, although the palace en- 
 closing the stone-paved courtyard on three 
 sides formed a sounding-board that echoed 
 and re-echoed all sounds. 
 
 "What can it mean?" wondered Mrs. 
 Allen, following her guide as he threaded his 
 way toward an arched doorway, then down 
 a long corridor paved with squares of white 
 marble to a great carved screen. Stopping, 
 he beckoned her to enter. 
 
 "Ong?" a voice questioned. 
 
 "Yes, excellency, and the American lady," 
 the servant answered. 
 
 "How pleasant to again see you!" wel- 
 comed the princess cordially. "Very much 
 I liked your writing me; all the long years 
 rolled back and I saw once more the wide 
 streets of Washington and the embassy 
 and my dead uncle. Almost a dream seems 
 that winter." 
 
 She spoke slowly, clearly, and very care- 
 fully. " Your mother ? That kind and gentle 
 lady ! And your father and the husband 
 in the navy of America ? Very happy am 
 I that his ship comes to my country and gives 
 me the sight of you."
 
 200 The Wall 
 
 Marjorie Allen smiled through a blur of 
 tears. "Home seems very far away ! Mother 
 and father were well when I last heard; they 
 will be interested to know that I have seen 
 you. Mother always inquired about you, 
 after you left Washington; your aunt told 
 her of your marriage that's how I knew 
 where to write you." 
 
 The princess nodded. 
 
 "How interesting this is!" said Marjorie 
 Allen enthusiastically; "your courtyard was 
 like a Bakst setting." 
 
 "You discover us in confusion," explained 
 the princess; "my brother-by-law and his 
 new wife arrived but an hour ago. Their 
 servants, I fear, still encumber the court- 
 yard." 
 
 "How I wish I might have seen them!" 
 cried Marjorie Allen enviously. 
 
 Palaces were a novelty but a Chinese 
 prince arriving with his bride ! 
 
 The princess smiled. 
 
 "Will you sit here ?" she asked, motioning 
 to a carved bench in the deep window. Turn- 
 ing, she spoke in Chinese, and Mrs. Allen 
 saw that they were not alone. In a shadowy
 
 The Wall 201 
 
 corner of the long room a woman sat huddled 
 in a great chair beside a table, her face hidden 
 against her arms. 
 
 Reluctantly she lifted her head, and Mar- 
 jorie Allen gave a little sigh of tribute to her 
 loveliness. From the magnificent pearls out- 
 lining the heavy pins in her blue-black hair 
 to the points of her tiny embroidered slippers 
 she was as exquisite as a flower. But Mar- 
 jorie Allen's eyes wandered from the face 
 that bloomed startlingly against the sombre 
 panelling to the perfect hands heritage of 
 generations of idleness that lay against the 
 dark wood of the table. 
 
 The woman looked at her. 
 
 Heavy-eyed, she glanced unhurriedly at 
 the visitor's tailored dress, plain hat, and 
 English shoes. 
 
 She hid her head on her arms again. 
 
 "Oh, Aisan!" reproved the princess, turn- 
 ing apologetically to her guest. "My sister- 
 by-law Aisan has no children; so to-day 
 her husband brings home a second wife," she 
 explained calmly. 
 
 Marjorie Allen gasped. 
 
 "How dreadful how degrading ! The poor
 
 202 The Wall 
 
 woman," she cried, looking compassionately 
 at the motionless, bowed figure. 
 
 The princess seemed puzzled. 
 
 "I do not understand," she said; "there 
 will be no poverty for Aisan. Life goes on 
 the same, and would, if my brother-by-law 
 brought home eight wives or eighteen; there 
 is plenty for all." 
 
 "But to ask her to live in the same house 
 with the others! How can she bear it?" 
 questioned Marjorie vehemently. 
 
 The princess sighed. 
 
 "Very thankful am I, during these days 
 with Aisan, that my honored father so in- 
 sisted on difficult books and the Confucian 
 lessons that taught obedience and restraint," 
 she said. "When I came from Washington 
 very brave was I, and very determined to 
 marry a poor young man who talked much. 
 My father knew best ! A husband whom 
 you love most miserable can he make you." 
 
 "No one likes having her husband won 
 away, even if she doesn't love him," as- 
 serted Marjorie Allen. 
 
 "As for Aisan, soon, I think, she will laugh 
 at these days; she has beauty, and that the
 
 The Wall 203 
 
 new wife has not," explained the princess 
 calmly. 
 
 Marjorie Allen shuddered. 
 
 "But I forget," apologized the princess; 
 "your steamer stops only a few hours, and 
 time goes quickly. You might wish to see 
 the palace ? Or the gray garden ? A famous 
 one it is, in China many hundreds of years 
 old." 
 
 She glanced toward the silent figure in the 
 chair, hesitated, and, crossing the room, spoke 
 softly in Chinese. The woman neither looked 
 up nor answered. 
 
 "Shall we go now?" she asked, turning. 
 "My sister-by-law speaks no English," she 
 added when, followed by servants carrying 
 trays of teacups and bowls of salted water- 
 melon seeds, they went slowly down the wide 
 stone walk. 
 
 "What did you say to her is there any- 
 thing you could say that would comfort her ?" 
 asked Marjorie Allen, haunted by the dumb 
 misery of the silent figure. 
 
 "I told her, to-day last not forever al- 
 ready the shadows lengthen, and in the end 
 it will not matter; but time was when I also
 
 204 The Wall 
 
 thought beauty everything ! One of your 
 friends that winter in Washington very 
 lovely she was men waited in little groups 
 to dance with her. I have wondered is she 
 happy?" she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Allen shook her head. 
 
 "What a coincidence that you should ask 
 for Elsie Marvin!" she said. "No, she has 
 had a miserable life. She divorced her first 
 husband because of another woman; he pays 
 her alimony . . . and she has been married 
 and divorced twice since." 
 
 "Alimony? Divorced?" questioned the 
 princess. "Her husbands pay her ? and two 
 other husbands ? and none dead ? What 
 are these things ? I do not understand !" she 
 cried. 
 
 "Oh, but only one at a time; it's settled 
 in court the divorce, I mean ! And two 
 husbands, without a divorce, is bigamy 
 people go to prison for that. I don't believe 
 I can explain it," said Marjorie Allen lamely. 
 
 "Courts and prisons are for coolies," as- 
 serted the princess with quiet finality; "in 
 palaces affairs are corrected by the head of 
 the house. What happens, no one beyond
 
 The Wall 205 
 
 the wall knows. But look !" she said, stoop- 
 ing under the shallow circular opening. " You 
 wished to see my brother-by-law and his new 
 wife ? A moment more and they would be 
 gone." 
 
 Facing them stood a man," coarse, sensual, 
 and supercilious, with the haughtiness of the 
 Chinese great, and a girl, gay as a butterfly 
 in her flowery brocade, her childish face 
 radiating content as her hands wandered 
 from the carved jade of her hairpins to the 
 embroideries of her yellow dress. Her pro- 
 prietary eye beamed approval on palace, 
 garden, and wall. 
 
 "But how curious no color or flowers!" 
 cried Marjorie Allen. 
 
 Before her, paths of fine gray pebbles 
 wound, or crossed on arching bridges the 
 stone-lined course of a riotous brook; water- 
 falls broke into rainbows of spray on the 
 gray rocks; a thatched tea-house showed its 
 roof of slate-colored tiles over the thickets 
 of silvery bamboo; willows trailed their ashen 
 leaves in the murmuring water. It was like 
 something seen by moonlight or in a dream. 
 
 The prince turned.
 
 206 The Wall 
 
 "You find it curious?" he asked. "Yet, 
 perhaps some day your country may be as 
 full of imitations of our gardens as it is now 
 with horrible counterfeits of our porcelains 
 and bronzes," he added insolently, and fol- 
 lowed his wife through the low archway. 
 
 Marjorie Allen gasped. Consideration for 
 women was not a grace the prince found 
 worthy of cultivation, she reflected; yet 
 guilty remembrance of "blue gardens," "rock 
 gardens," "wild gardens," at home and in 
 England, kept her silent. Could they be 
 the first crude strivings for this perfect 
 achievement ? 
 
 "Shall we have tea now?" questioned the 
 princess, leading toward the tea-house porch. 
 
 Marjorie Allen looked after the prince and 
 his bride. "She'll never be unhappy here 
 while there are needlewomen and goldsmiths," 
 she commented dryly. 
 
 The princess laughed. "Already you can 
 see ? And soon fault-finding with the servants 
 or any who disturb her comfort," she prophe- 
 sied. 
 
 "I've seen so many things to remember 
 and think about to-day ! The city gates
 
 The Wall 207 
 
 this garden and that wonderful old drum- 
 tower on the way here; it's the most pic- 
 turesque building I've ever seen." 
 
 "The drum-tower is not old it was built 
 in 1490," explained the princess; "but the 
 temple you pass, just below our wall, nearly 
 two thousand years has it stood; sometimes 
 when I see the hawthorn blossoming, and 
 remember the smallness of them when I came 
 here, a long time it seems; but to the un- 
 changing stars how recent must the temple 
 appear! Does it teach indifference or just 
 patience ?" she asked. 
 
 "How new my country must have seemed ! 
 Do you ever talk of it with your sisters-in- 
 law?" asked Marjorie Allen. 
 
 "A pleasant memory -the clean, wide 
 streets," praised the princess, and hesitated. 
 "My sisters-by-law only from the window 
 of a chair or carriage have they seen your 
 women and their clothes useful they are 
 but not beautiful, those dresses." 
 
 She smiled reminiscently. 
 
 "Long ago, I tried once to tell of evening 
 dresses in your country of the colors and 
 slippers and trains and jewels. Most un-
 
 208 The Wall 
 
 happily, I told also of the low-cut necks and 
 the dancing with men !" 
 
 The princess paused and shook her head. 
 
 "My husband's mother lived then; she 
 forbade me ever so to speak again. Except 
 that my family is a great one, I think she 
 mourned a daughter-by-law who had looked 
 upon such sights." 
 
 "What would she think of the dresses and 
 dancing now?" thought Mrs. Allen. 
 
 There was silence. 
 
 "One's own country and its ways to 
 each seems most beautiful and best," apol- 
 ogized the princess gently. 
 
 With the obvious intention of amusing 
 her guest she spoke of the skating club that 
 had been a feature of the social life in Wash- 
 ington during her winter. 
 
 "My life you see it very quiet it is 
 and think how to me the upon-skates men 
 and women seemed ! Some had never before 
 attempted it; they waved their arms; their 
 feet went in ways they did not desire ! One 
 man from the embassy of England often 
 and heavily he sat upon the floor." 
 
 The princess smiled. "Very interested 
 was I. Every time, until people skated
 
 The Wall 209 
 
 smoothly, I went; but never did the embassy- 
 of-England man learn. He stopped trying. 
 Kenton his name, and recently in the Shang- 
 hai papers I read that name." 
 
 "It is the same man," said Marjorie Allen. 
 "Then he was naval attache, now he is the 
 admiral commanding their Asiatic squadron. 
 He always was an idiot. I hear that he makes 
 love to any pretty wife of a junior officer, and 
 when they object, tells them 'not to be so 
 middle class/ He has learned to guard against 
 falls," she commented dryly. 
 
 The princess turned a bewildered face. 
 
 "I do not understand," she apologized. 
 
 "Tell me, please, of your aunt is she 
 near?" asked Marjorie Allen, hastily chang- 
 ing the subject. Glancing toward the garden, 
 she saw that it was veiled in long shadows; 
 a cold breeze stirred. 
 
 From a cage under the tea-house eaves a 
 nightingale called mournfully to his faithless 
 mate; the new moon curved faintly above 
 the pointed pine-trees; far away the whip- 
 poorwills voiced their dreary plaint. 
 
 Mrs. Allen rose. "We sail at seven I 
 must go," she said. 
 
 "Darkness comes quickly. I am sorry this
 
 210 The Wall 
 
 afternoon is gone," said the princess with a 
 little sigh. "I am sending Ong an old ser- 
 vant who speaks English back to your boat 
 with you. It is better that you should not 
 go alone through the city, and with him you 
 need have no fear. Also, will you take from 
 me to your mother a little gift and my good 
 wishes ?" she asked, opening the door into 
 the great courtyard, empty now but for the 
 two rickshas and their coolies. 
 
 "How kind of you and how thoughtful! 
 Mother will be so pleased; she will write 
 you," said Marjorie Allen, warmed by the 
 gentle courtesy. 
 
 The princess watched her get into the 
 ricksha. 
 
 "Never again shall I see your country, but 
 if once more you are in China " 
 
 She stopped. 
 
 From the shadowy house a cry arose . . . 
 a shriek of terror . . . the sound of a struggle 
 ... a voice raised sharply in wordless protest 
 against unbearable agony . . . echoed and 
 answered among the stones of the courtyard. 
 
 Slowly . . . the voice died to a gurgling 
 moan; . . . gasping followed; . . . the demon
 
 The Wall 211 
 
 echoes whispered them gloatingly, sang them 
 triumphantly, juggled them intricately, mum- 
 bled them faintly. 
 
 The palace awoke. 
 
 Heavy doors slammed; voices called; run- 
 ning, slippered feet clicked over stone floors; 
 lights flashed out; a shutter over the princess's 
 head was quietly closed. A babel of voices 
 sounded, then a pause; and one quiet voice, 
 tired and old but compelling. 
 
 The echoes ignored it. 
 
 Marjorie Allen unclasped her cold fingers. 
 
 "Something dreadful has happened," she 
 whispered. 
 
 The princess lifted her head and spoke 
 evenly. "Although I shall never again see 
 your country and the wide, white streets of 
 Washington, if you are in China I hope you 
 will write me," she said. Only the knuckles 
 of one clinched hand betrayed the knowledge 
 of anything unusual. 
 
 From the arched embrasure a man's voice 
 sounded, high, cruel, merciless with anger, 
 and as the echoing courtyard seized it and 
 gave it back, an ugly snarl ran through it. 
 The voice paused, but the snarling echo went
 
 2i2 The Wall 
 
 on. The voice sounded again, but now it 
 was muffled by the pathos of a woman's sob- 
 bing, in despair and anguish and helpless- 
 ness, . . . that spoke and answered across 
 the darkening courtyard. . . . 
 
 "Some dreadful accident has happened," 
 breathed Marjorie Allen. 
 
 The door opened, and the old servant came 
 out; trembling, he climbed into the waiting 
 ricksha. 
 
 "So much have I enjoyed your visit," said 
 the princess; "a happy memory those old 
 days ! Good-by, and a safe journey." 
 
 The ricksha turned. 
 
 But even as the gates clanged behind them 
 Marjorie Allen heard the despairing weeping 
 and saw the princess standing motionless on 
 the palace steps, while above her the night 
 wind sounded its first whisperings among the 
 sculptured dragons of the curving eaves. 
 
 She turned impulsively to the old servant. 
 "Was some one hurt what happened ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Her excellency the Princess Aisan 
 dealeth death to the new princess," he whis- 
 pered feebly.
 
 The Wall 213 
 
 Straightening, he looked at this inquisitive 
 alien woman. 
 
 "I not speak English," he said clearly; 
 and as they turned the corner he growled an 
 order in Chinese, and his ricksha, dropping 
 behind, followed through the dusk down the 
 uneven roadway skirting the palace wall.
 
 XI 
 GUAM AND EFFIE 
 
 ARE you an American ? 
 
 Then, of course, you know all about our 
 island of Guam. 
 
 But if you don't: place an equal triangle 
 on the Pacific Ocean with one point on Hono- 
 lulu and one point on Yokohama; the third 
 point will rest approximately on Guam. 
 
 Guam is a far-flung, remote sort of place, 
 hundreds of miles off the paths of freight 
 steamers or the trans-Pacific liners. Once a 
 month, on the outward-bound trip to Manila, 
 the army transport stops with the mail, pro- 
 visions, and the shifting officers and men. On 
 the return voyage the transport does not stop. 
 
 Since the capture of the island by the 
 U.'S. S.S. Charleston during our war with Spain, 
 the governors of Guam have been officers of 
 the United States Navy. The governor lives 
 in the old Spanish "palace," but the junior 
 naval officers find quarters where they can 
 
 among the native houses in the capital city. 
 
 214
 
 Guam and Effie 215 
 
 "The seat of the insular government of 
 Guam and the home of 60 per cent of its in- 
 habitants is at Agana. Agafia is hot and 
 damp and " 
 
 But my preface is too long. 
 
 To Guam, on the March transport, came 
 Lieutenant and Mrs. Hugh Meredith, re- 
 cently married in New York, where Mrs. 
 Meredith, as Effie Steadman, had graced the 
 chorus of a successful musical comedy. The 
 marriage had been a hasty one, following a 
 courtship rendered incitingly difficult by Lieu- 
 tenant Meredith's duties as aide to an admiral 
 and Effie's conflicting rehearsals, matinees, 
 and evening performances a courtship with 
 all the feverish, calculated glamour of the 
 restaurants and tea-rooms where it was 
 carried on. 
 
 In the end Hugh Meredith to whom 
 preference by the admiral came as easily as 
 the generous allowance from home brushed 
 aside the barrier of difficult meetings and 
 married Miss Steadman before a dignitary 
 in the city hall. 
 
 The Hugh Meredith surveying the Eden-
 
 216 Guam and Effie 
 
 like trees of Guam from the transport's deck 
 was a considerably sadder and wiser person 
 than the care-free hero of that whirlwind 
 romance ! 
 
 Events had quickly followed : The generous 
 allowance from home ceased with stunning 
 abruptness; indeed, judging by any approval 
 or enthusiasm of his act from his family 
 except for one letter from his mother written 
 during her first, white heat of anger he 
 might have been a kinless orphan ! Curiously, 
 too, the admiral suddenly needed an older 
 aide, and the admiral's lively daughter stopped 
 being "always at home at tea-time." In less 
 than two months life grew to be amazingly 
 chilly to Hugh Meredith. His orders to 
 Guam came as a real boon. 
 
 "I'll be glad to go somewhere a long way 
 off," he told Effie, who regarded this new 
 development as a sort of "going on the road," 
 and was neither pleased nor sorry. 
 
 "I like to travel, too," agreed Effie. "Since 
 I've gotten rested I've missed the theatre. 
 The days are long when you haven't any- 
 thing to do. Sometimes when you come 
 home, I can't think of a thing to talk about !
 
 Guam and Effie 217 
 
 What sort of a place is this Guam ? I need 
 some new clothes but, of course " 
 
 "If I'd only saved when I could !" groaned 
 Hugh. "But you won't need new clothes in 
 Guam," he comforted. 
 
 And now, from the transport's deck, a 
 limp and seasick Effie viewed, with growing 
 apprehension, her new home. "I'd never 
 have believed any place could be so far from 
 every other place and still be on the map," 
 she commented, looking back over the im- 
 mense, flat Pacific. 
 
 "I'm going to make good here, if I work 
 my finger-nails off," said her husband with 
 bitter emphasis. "Every one has fired me 
 out to shift for myself; we'll show them, 
 won't we ?" 
 
 "They'll need good eyesight," volunteered 
 the wavering Effie; "it looks so lonesome," 
 she amended forlornly. A nearer view was 
 not reassuring. Effie lapsed into silence a 
 silence that deepened after Hugh had enthu- 
 siastically greeted an old friend and they were 
 following him through the streets of Agana. 
 
 "I didn't know that you were here, Put- 
 nam ! Where's Alice ?" Hugh asked.
 
 2i 8 Guam and Effie 
 
 Doctor Putnam's pleasant face clouded. 
 "She's here, but she's been ill ever since our 
 baby was born dead two months ago. I'm 
 hoping to get her away as soon as she is able 
 to travel," he said, and added briskly: "When 
 I saw by a wireless message from your trans- 
 port that you were coming to take Russell's 
 job, I officiously engaged the house they 
 were vacating, for you with the two Cha- 
 morro servants and all. It's the best avail- 
 able, Mrs. Meredith; the Russells left some 
 furniture and decorations, and my wife sent 
 over enough provisions to last you until you 
 get the hang of the native hucksters. She 
 was sorry not to welcome you, but she hasn't 
 seen any one yet." The doctor paused; then, 
 as Effie did not speak, went on: "The houses 
 are built on stilts because it is cooler and less 
 damp, Mrs. Meredith, and then it gives you 
 a place to keep a pig. You'll never realize 
 what a useful animal a pig is until you see 
 him working, twenty-four hours a day, around 
 the native houses !" 
 
 "He's joking, Effie," whispered Hugh, 
 across her uncompromising silence, as they 
 followed the doctor down a narrow street.
 
 Guam and Effie 219 
 
 "This is your mansion," said Doctor Putnam, 
 running up the steps and opening the door. 
 
 "Three rooms the kitchen is in that de- 
 tached shed. You'll have to give the house 
 boy an umbrella to carry over your food 
 when it rains " 
 
 Effie, still silent, stood looking about the 
 small bare rooms. 
 
 "Russell left you some books nothing 
 very modern, but you won't mind that when 
 you've been here a little while. Those ma- 
 chetes and that old Chamorro idea of a 
 revolver were hung up there for ornaments 
 by a man who had this house five years ago. 
 Russell warned me to tell you not to try to 
 use the gun, Meredith; he told me that he 
 took a shot at a bat once with it, and it not 
 only kicked like a mule but it back-fired so 
 that he still carries the scars ! 
 
 "Russell's two Chamorro servants aren't 
 much good, but none of the others are any 
 better. Hope you haven't brought a lot of 
 wedding presents, Mrs. Meredith; the house 
 boys here haven't the least idea of how to 
 treat silver." 
 
 "I haven't," vouchsafed Effie grimly.
 
 220 Guam and Effie 
 
 Doctor Putnam paused awkwardly, then 
 tried a new subject. "Alice heard from your 
 sister last month, Meredith, but she didn't 
 mention you ! If she'd only told us that 
 Mrs. Meredith was coming I could have held 
 a better house for you." 
 
 "I'm sure this one will do won't it, Effie ? 
 Who else is here besides Alice and you?" 
 asked Hugh hurriedly. 
 
 "Major Forde, of the marines Yes, 
 Pedro!" he called to a boy clad in a jumper 
 of thin material that hung, wide and full, 
 to the hips of his cotton trousers. "They 
 want me at the dispensary," explained Doc- 
 tor Putnam after questioning him. "Good- 
 by, Mrs. Meredith. About settling with 
 Russell His voice trailed off from the 
 road. 
 
 Hugh Meredith came slowly back into the 
 room where Effie stood. Outside, from a 
 palm-tree, a rose-colored fruit dove called 
 across the warm stillness a low, insistent, 
 mournful plaint, and, from far away, came 
 the subdued, languorous, answering notes; 
 the heavy air seemed throbbingly full of the 
 bubbling, melancholy sound.
 
 Guam and Effie 221 
 
 Effie turned. "How long are we to stay 
 here ?" she demanded huskily. 
 
 "You're worn out by the long sea voyage," 
 her husband evaded. "Guam is beautiful; 
 you'll like it after you get used to it ! Come 
 and have a look at the pink dove that is mak- 
 ing all that racket he's some bird " 
 
 "Are the Merediths receiving ?" called a 
 voice from outside. "Welcome to our me- 
 tropolis !" laughed a newcomer from the door- 
 way. "Haven't seen you since Washington, 
 four years ago, Meredith ! How are your 
 mother and sister ? My regards to them 
 when you write. I was surprised when I 
 heard that you were coming here ! Please 
 present me to er Mrs. Meredith." 
 
 Hugh, without enthusiasm, greeted the volu- 
 ble visitor. "Effie Major Forde," he said. 
 
 "So sorry Mrs. Forde isn't here but I 
 couldn't ask her to bury herself. Are you 
 from Washington, Mrs. Meredith ?" inquired 
 the major. 
 
 "No," answered Effie. 
 
 "My wife is from New York," vouchsafed 
 Hugh. 
 
 "Fine place!" commented the major with
 
 222 Guam and Effie 
 
 hearty approval. "No place like it ! You'll 
 find it lonely here unless, of course, you have 
 a hobby. Cards ? Embroidery ? Piano ? 
 Or perhaps you go in for the high-brow 
 stuff?" He looked about. "Books, already !" 
 he observed, and read the titles: "Tennyson ! 
 Rossetti ! Oh, dear me !" wailed the impres- 
 sionable major. 
 
 " Some books that Russell left," said Hugh. 
 
 "Glad they aren't yours!" approved the 
 major. "I'm looking forward to seeing a 
 great deal of the Merediths," he explained. 
 "Mrs. Putnam is very ill the doctor hopes 
 to take her home soon so I'm your only 
 link with the past," he explained, and waited. 
 
 "You're very kind," agreed Hugh lamely. 
 There was a pause. The major broke it with 
 effusive querulousness. 
 
 "Where have I met you before, Mrs. Mere- 
 dith?" he inquired. "Your face is perfectly 
 familiar to me ! Haven't I seen you some- 
 where ? You don't, by any chance, play on 
 the violin or something?" 
 
 "Effie sings a little," volunteered Hugh 
 hastily. 
 
 The major looked about. "And no piano !"
 
 Guam and Effie 223 
 
 he lamented, rising. "I have to hunt up 
 some old friends on the transport but, of 
 course, I came to welcome you first ! Hope 
 you like me, Mrs. Meredith; you're going 
 to see me early and often," he promised play- 
 fully. Hugh went with him to the door. 
 "Don't forget to remember me to your mother 
 and sister," the major reiterated. 
 
 "Did he know your people well?" ques- 
 tioned Effie curiously. 
 
 Hugh glanced at her. "No," he answered. 
 " I doubt if he ever really met them. Mother 
 and Eleanor wouldn't care for his sort." He 
 hesitated. "Alice Putnam, the doctor's wife, 
 is one of my sister's best friends. You'll like 
 her. She's a great reader. I'm hoping you'll 
 get a love for books here, Effie. You'll be 
 glad always if, instead of playing cards or 
 idling, you take up a regular course of study. 
 It isn't lonely when you're busy. I'll have 
 to be away lots; up to now I've sailed along 
 without effort, but from now on what I get 
 I'll have to earn " He paused. "What 
 is it, Effie ?" questioned Hugh Meredith. 
 
 She turned tensely. "The scraping and 
 that queer moan what are they ?"
 
 224 Guam and Effie 
 
 He listened. "A palm-leaf against a corner 
 of the house, and the waves on the beach," 
 he laughed. 
 
 The fruit dove had flown away; already 
 the swift afternoon sunlight was waning, 
 and bats, on slanting black wings, sailed 
 leisurely across the sky. The Chamorro 
 house boy sauntered into the dining-room 
 and, after a few colloquialisms, announced 
 that dinner would be ready in a half-hour. 
 Outside a heavy, dry palm-leaf sawed in- 
 termittently against the wall; on the beach 
 the waves broke slowly and spread with a 
 sluggish sibilance on the hot sand. Other- 
 wise it was very still. 
 
 The etiquette of all naval stations is the 
 same. New arrivals cause a spasmodic ripple 
 of entertaining, only equalled by the crowd- 
 ing hospitalities proffered when an officer, 
 his wife, and his family move on. At Guam 
 this is regulated by the arrival or departure 
 of transports. Between times the uneventful 
 days march lazily past. 
 
 To Effie Meredith they seemed to crawl 
 with increasing slowness. She did not "take"
 
 Guam and Effie 225 
 
 with the card-playing set, and after the first 
 tentative calls they left her to herself. The 
 governor's wife was pursuing a vision of pre- 
 senting Guam to the world by means of a 
 set of water-color sketches, on which she 
 arduously toiled. She soon discovered that 
 Effie's knowledge of art was negligible. 
 
 "I asked her if she didn't consider water- 
 color the most brilliant and satisfactory 
 medium, and she answered that she thought 
 grease-paint best. Could she have been at- 
 tempting to be facetious ?" confided the 
 governor's wife to a friend, with growing 
 stiffness. "I can't quite understand how 
 that nice Meredith boy happened to marry 
 such a girl. She doesn't know his people 
 I asked her!" commented the "ranking 
 lady." 
 
 Major Forde, more temperamentally de- 
 vious, had also informed himself on that 
 point. He "stopped in" almost every after- 
 noon, and although Effie did not like him, 
 he was "some one to talk to." 
 
 "You don't know Washington, then?" 
 questioned the major during his third visit; 
 "but some day you will see it most delight-
 
 226 Guam and Effie 
 
 fully with Meredith's mother and sister. 
 Charming people, aren't they?" 
 
 "I've never seen them," vouchsafed the 
 literal Effie. 
 
 "Hm'm," commented the major, and 
 paused. "My wife often writes of them," 
 he added, sipping the lemonade Effie had 
 hesitatingly proffered. 
 
 Conversation languished. 
 
 "Meredith says that you sing," observed 
 the major, and experimented with a sud- 
 den question. "Professional?" he inquired 
 boldly. 
 
 "Yes," answered Effie without embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 The major's "Hm'm" spoke volumes. He 
 glanced around the bare rooms from the 
 small stand, covered with a table-napkin 
 and adorned with a pitcher filled with 
 telosma, to the group of native weapons on 
 the wall. "Must be lonely for you here," 
 he said. 
 
 "It is," agreed Effie. "I'll be glad when 
 Mrs. Putnam gets better. I'm going to see 
 her, for the first time, to-morrow." 
 
 "Why is Mrs. Putnam bothering?" won-
 
 Guam and Effie 227 
 
 dered the major. The Chamorro boy saun- 
 tering in to set the table roused him. "I 
 must be going,'* he said. 
 
 Effie, loitering in the doorway, heard the 
 haunting call of a reed-warbler, ineffably 
 sweet on the quiet evening air. The sea was 
 so calm that the lazy surf made no sound, 
 but against the wall a palm-leaf rasped with 
 indolent persistence. 
 
 "I always believed, when I lived in New 
 York, that a house and servants were the 
 finest things in the world. Well, now I've 
 got them !" thought Effie, and saw the golden 
 landscape through a blur of tears. 
 
 Hugh came cheerily up the steps. "It's 
 great, isn't it ?" he asked enthusiastically. 
 "I'm never too tired to enjoy my walk home. 
 Didn't I see Forde coming away from here ? 
 I wouldn't bother much with him, Effie; he 
 isn't worth while. Dinner, Pedro ?" 
 
 Mrs. Putnam smiled feebly at her visitor, 
 and glanced nervously toward the desk, where 
 the corner of an embittered letter from Mrs. 
 Meredith, senior, showed from a pigeonhole. 
 "I'm sorry I've been such a poor neighbor,"
 
 228 Guam and Effie 
 
 she said. "Are you comfortable ? Is there 
 anything we can do to help you out ? I was 
 so ill when you came that I had to leave all 
 arrangements to the servants." 
 
 Effie smiled back. "We have everything 
 going smoothly now. You've been so kind ! 
 Whenever anything especially good comes on 
 the table Hugh asks, 'From Mrs. Putnam's ?' 
 and it always is from you. You've trained 
 your cook wonderfully !" 
 
 Mrs. Putnam laughed. "You should have 
 seen my early struggles," she said. "I've 
 been so thankful that my Quaker grandmother 
 made me learn to cook !" 
 
 Effie's face sobered. "I wish I knew how! 
 I can boil potatoes and fry beefsteak but 
 that isn't cooking. And I can't sew. In 
 New York, or on the road, I had no time, 
 and ready-made things are cheap the kind 
 I bought," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Putnam turned on her pillows. "Tell 
 me how do you like Guam ? What do you 
 do with your days ?" she asked kindly. 
 
 Effie caught her breath. "Why noth- 
 ing ' she answered. "We have breakfast, 
 and I straighten up. Hugh's things are al-
 
 Guam and Effie 229 
 
 ways in order, but I never bothered much, 
 before just tumbled my clothes in, the 
 quickest way. Now I try to keep them neat." 
 
 "But that doesn't fill your day," objected 
 Mrs. Putnam. 
 
 "Oh, no! After that I look out of the 
 window, or Major Forde comes to call, or 
 I walk back to where I can't hear the waves 
 on the beach." 
 
 "But the sound of the waves is pleasant !" 
 cried Mrs. Putnam. "What should we do, 
 during the hot weather, if we couldn't hear 
 the waves ?" 
 
 Effie's face hardened. "It's such a lonely 
 sound. I hate it !" she said. 
 
 Mrs. Putnam felt unaccountably sorry for 
 her. " Do you read ? But you must ! Will 
 you get the green book there yes, please. 
 It's Conrad's 'Victory.' You'll enjoy it. If 
 a person gets interested in books it opens a 
 new world to them. And perhaps, later on 
 when I'm better, I can help you with the 
 cooking and sewing," she promised. 
 
 Efiie, obedient to a signal from the nurse, 
 rose to go. For a second she stood silently 
 by the bed, then: "I'm so sorry that the
 
 230 Guam and Effie 
 
 baby died " she said with awkward sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 Mrs. Putnam's eyes filled with tears. 
 "Thank you," she whispered. 
 
 Major Forde was waiting in the small 
 parlor when Effie, hugging the book under 
 her arm, came up the steps. 
 
 "I knew it!" he exclaimed dramatically. 
 "Literature! And in this heat! Break it 
 to me gently Shakespeare or Bacon ?" 
 
 "It's * Victory' Mrs. Putnam wanted me 
 to read it," explained Effie. 
 
 "Hm'm," mused the major. "Now why 
 is she bothering?" Aloud he said: "Mrs. 
 Putnam hasn't troubled much with the women 
 here. Oh, I don't mean that she snubs them 
 she just isn't interested. Perhaps Hugh's 
 sister asked her to be nice to you ?" he sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "No," answered Effie. "Hugh's sister 
 doesn't know me." 
 
 "Well, I wondered !" commented the major, 
 and ventured a quick question. "Chorus?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Yes," answered Effie simply. She leaned
 
 Guam and Effie 231 
 
 her head on her hand, brushing away the 
 tiny beads of perspiration. 
 
 "Must seem pretty dull to you here after 
 your gay life," remarked the major. 
 
 Effie thought about it. "My life wasn't 
 particularly gay, except that there were lots 
 of girls to talk to and laugh with. We worked 
 hard," she said. 
 
 "Where did Meredith come in?" inquired 
 the major. 
 
 Effie brightened. "We had such a good 
 time!" she answered almost gayly. 
 
 "Don't you have a good time now ?" asked 
 Major Forde. 
 
 "Yes but it's different," answered Effie. 
 
 " Hugh doesn't appreciate you ? Grown 
 tired?" suggested the major, and added: 
 "Guess you're more my sort." 
 
 "Oh, no!" she assured him. "I've known 
 lots of men like you men who ask questions 
 just as you do they're around every stage 
 door. The girls laugh about them." 
 
 Major Forde glanced sharply at her. 
 "You're trying to get even," he accused. 
 
 "Oh, no," Effie repeated reflectively, and 
 added: "It's odd but nearly always the
 
 232 Guam and Effie 
 
 wife of your kind of man doesn't live with 
 him." 
 
 Major Forde arose. "Mrs. Forde is a 
 great social favorite in Washington," he an- 
 nounced stiffly. "Her life, her friends, her 
 amusements are outside of the experience of 
 most of the people here." 
 
 "Does Mrs. Putnam know her?" asked 
 Effie with amiable formality. 
 
 "Mrs. Putnam knows a great many people 
 Hugh's mother and sister, for instance," 
 commented the major darkly, as he went 
 down the steps. 
 
 Effie leaned her aching head on her hands. 
 "Why do I care what he says or what the 
 Merediths think ?" she wondered. 
 
 Below, on the beach, the waves broke 
 languidly; the palm-tree, at the corner of 
 the house, rasped its dry leaves back and 
 forth back and forth. 
 
 "Victory" filled some hours of the long 
 days. Effie read painstakingly and, at times, 
 with faint enjoyment. 
 
 "Did you like it?" Mrs. Putnam asked; 
 her face was whiter than when Effie had seen 
 her before, but her voice was as kind.
 
 Guam and Effie 233 
 
 Effie hesitated. "Yes some," she an- 
 swered. "Things happened on that island. 
 They never do here. And it sounded sort 
 of pretty." 
 
 "You're stone blind!" Mrs. Putnam as- 
 sured her. "Guam is beautiful, and as for 
 things happening why each woman here is 
 as busy as a mouse in a waste-paper basket ! 
 Which of the officers' wives do you like 
 best ?" 
 
 "Not any of them," answered Effie slowly. 
 "The older ones are busy, and the younger 
 ones play cards all the time. They're pleasant 
 enough, but I don't know what to talk to 
 them about. I've gone to their houses several 
 times when I was too lonely, but they stopped 
 playing cards and seemed to be waiting for 
 me to go; and the last time yesterday 
 one of them asked the others how to spell 
 'bore.' I won't go again," explained Effie. 
 
 Mrs. Putnam's voice was incredulous. 
 "They didn't!" she exclaimed, and glanced 
 at her guest, then laid a gentle hand over 
 Effie's tightly interlaced ringers. 
 
 "Nothing like that could hurt us, could 
 it ? Because we know that the sort of woman 
 who would say such a thing, or think it clever,
 
 234 Guam and Effie 
 
 is so innately common that nothing she said 
 would matter to us," said Mrs. Putnam, 
 and added, as Effie's tense attitude relaxed: 
 "You mustn't judge the navy women by 
 the unfortunate group that happens, at this 
 time, to be at Agana. You may never en- 
 counter anything like it again, although in 
 any gathering of women, social or profes- 
 sional, they're never all of one grade. But 
 usually there are enough well-bred gentle- 
 women to leaven the mixture. Do try to 
 get interested in books ! You can't realize 
 what it will mean to you." 
 
 Effie ignored the literary suggestion. "I 
 wouldn't mind so much if I didn't realize 
 that if Hugh had married one of his sister's 
 friends these women wouldn't dare act so. 
 I cheapen him" admitted Effie huskily. 
 "Hugh's mother has never written him 
 since he married me." 
 
 "I've known Hugh's people all my life," 
 said Mrs. Putnam. "Hugh's a great sur- 
 prise to us these days ! I thought his mother 
 had succeeded in spoiling him. She certainly 
 went about it right by giving him too much 
 money and letting him think that having a
 
 Guam and Effie 235 
 
 good time was the only necessary aim in life. 
 But now my husband says Hugh's the hardest 
 worker on the island. That's your influence ! " 
 
 Effie flushed. "No, it's Hugh himself. 
 But I hate to come between Hugh and his 
 family. I know that you know about us 
 and Major Forde says " 
 
 "Major Forde can't tell you anything 
 about the Merediths, because he doesn't 
 know them. We disliked him and his climb- 
 ing wife too much to tolerate them. As for 
 Mrs. Meredith Hugh is the apple of her 
 eye ! Give her time. She'll come around if 
 she thinks you don't need her. I'm surprised 
 that she has held out as long as this. But you 
 must study; better try another book. There's 
 Conrad's 'Youth' I've read it again and 
 again !" 
 
 "Is it about islands ?" asked Effie. 
 
 "No, it's a story of the sea. You can hear 
 the waves!" said Mrs. Putnam. 
 
 Effie left the book on the table when she 
 said good-by and made her way slowly toward 
 her own house. Agafia dreamed heavily in 
 the late sunshine. On the beach acres of 
 seaside daffodils blossomed in prodigal lux-
 
 236 Guam and Effie 
 
 uriance; tawny-colored butterflies floated 
 above the convolvulus on wide and leisurely 
 wings; hibiscus bloomed in tireless profusion 
 along the hedges. 
 
 "I can't see anything beautiful here," 
 grieved Effie. 
 
 As usual, Major Forde waited on the steps. 
 
 "I've been at Mrs. Putnam's; she looks 
 very ill," Effie told him. 
 
 "Putnam's arranging to take her home on 
 the next transport," answered the omniscient 
 major, and added: "You'll miss her?" 
 
 "It'll be lonely for you, especially as Hugh 
 finds it convenient to be away so much," 
 ventured the major after a pause. 
 
 Effie flared up. "Don't you dare speak 
 so of Hugh I won't have it !" she said. 
 
 Major Forde smiled. "Why don't you 
 tell the truth ?" he asked. 
 
 "It is the truth. Hugh's away working 
 hard trying to do his best, so that it will 
 go on his record. He has had so much staff 
 duty that he says no one believes that he 
 can do anything else. He can't do good work 
 and sit around on porches," vouchsafed Effie. 
 
 Major Forde flushed. "Men are always

 
 Guam and Effie 237 
 
 'busy* when they find it convenient," he 
 observed, shoving back his chair. From be- 
 hind the cushion a folded letter dropped. 
 The major stooped and picked it up. "Your 
 Chamorro boy evidently dusts by putting 
 things out of sight/' he commented critically 
 as he rose to go. "I'm rather expecting to 
 get away on the next transport myself," he 
 added. 
 
 "How splendid!" cried Effie, with such 
 generous enthusiasm that the major glared 
 affrontedly at her. "Glad you're pleased," 
 he growled. "Hope you'll enjoy the hot 
 weather it's about due." 
 
 After he had gone she came back to the 
 chair by the window and, noticing the letter, 
 picked it up. 
 
 "Pedro," she called to the boy, who was 
 yawningly setting the table, "where did this 
 come from ?" 
 
 "Him fall from capt'n's coat when I take 
 coat to press and pack away as you tell 
 me," answered Pedro promptly. 
 
 Effie smiled, remembering Hugh's whimsi- 
 cal remark, "Wish the Navy Department 
 would promote me as fast as Pedro does!"
 
 238 Guam and Effie 
 
 and opened the letter. The first words riveted 
 her attention. It commenced, without saluta- 
 tion, "Hugh," and was dated two days after 
 her marriage. 
 
 How could you how could you do such a thing ? 
 After all these years of living among gentle people, 
 surrounded by the things that come from education 
 and refinement, you show an innate commonness (for 
 which I cannot account) by marrying this dreadful 
 creature. 
 
 Do you expect me to present such a daughter-in- 
 law to my friends ? Do you expect your sister to wel- 
 come such a sister-in-law? (Your old friend, Billy 
 Somers, said to her yesterday: "Cheer up, Eleanor! 
 Almost every family has some disgraceful members.") 
 
 One one point you may be very certain. Never, 
 until you can assure us that the woman you have 
 married has gone permanently out of your life and 
 your future, need you write or plan to see your sister 
 
 or your heart-broken , , 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 Effie read the letter three times; then, 
 sitting motionless, stared, unseeing, at the 
 wall in front of her. For once the palm-tree 
 rasped unheeded against the house; the 
 waves on the beach moaned to deaf ears. 
 
 Hot weather came early that year, and 
 broke all records. Daylight, and a molten
 
 Guam and Effie 239 
 
 copper sun, seemed to spring flaming over 
 the misty horizon line long before the glare 
 of the day before had faded from tired eyes. 
 It was a time to test the endurance of the 
 strongest, and Effie had neither the strength 
 nor the logic necessary to face the long days. 
 She slept so lightly that the sound of the sea 
 and the rustle of the palm-tree seemed burned 
 into her consciousness, as the brazen sky 
 and oily water burned on her sight. She 
 found herself trying to concentrate her at- 
 tention on the wall, the floor, the table, to 
 hold them by sheer will-power, from swing- 
 ing and swaying in the glare. She longed 
 for the night, that she might escape from 
 the long hiss of the slow waves, the sawing 
 of the palm-leaves against the house. 
 
 And when Hugh was at home he read 
 books ! 
 
 "Guam's a great place, Effie," he told 
 her; "you'll never have time to study and 
 read as you have here ! Dickens, Thackeray, 
 Stevenson I never knew before how won- 
 derful Stevenson is ! You'd love some of 
 his stories if you'd read them." 
 
 "What are they about ?" asked Effie.
 
 240 Guam and Effie 
 
 "All sorts of things! A lot of the best 
 ones are about islands. I'll bring some over." 
 
 Effie never opened them. 
 
 " You're reading poetry, now," she said 
 one evening, looking over his shoulder. 
 
 Hugh glanced up apologetically. "Seems 
 foolish for a man, doesn't it?" he said. 
 "Rossetti, too!" 
 
 She read it slowly: 
 
 " 'Nay, why 
 
 Name the dead hours ? I mind them well: 
 Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell 
 With desolate eyes to know them by.' 
 
 "It doesn't rhyme," said Effie. 
 
 Hugh smiled. "I don't believe he meant 
 it to rhyme but here ! I'll read some Tenny- 
 son that rhymes: 'The Lady of Shallot.' ' 
 
 He read it through. 
 
 "I like that better," agreed Effie. "Not 
 the island nor the Sir the 'tirralirra' man. 
 We once had a property-man with coal-black 
 curls. Greasy old thing!" 
 
 "Now you try reading one. There's a 
 dandy called 'The Lotus Eaters.' ' 
 
 "What's it about ?" asked Effie. 
 
 "Oh, an island something like this. I
 
 Guam and Effie 241 
 
 think of it when I'm walking to the office 
 and see the blue sky running into the blue 
 ocean and the heavy sunshine, and smell the 
 ilang-ilang. Tennyson might have been writ- 
 ing of Guam!" 
 
 Effie laid the volume down. "All the books 
 that were ever written are about islands or 
 the sea," she thought desperately. 
 
 "Hugh," she ventured, "does Major Forde 
 know your sister well ?" 
 
 Hugh closed his book. "I should rather 
 guess not," he said. "Nell wouldn't bother 
 with him for a minute ! He likes to pretend 
 to know people calls women he has met 
 once or twice by their first names he's really 
 an awful bounder. I wouldn't have him 
 here so much, if I were you." 
 
 "I don't like him but he's some one to 
 talk to," said Effie, and added slowly: "Your 
 mother and sister will never know me, will 
 they?" 
 
 Hugh flushed and swallowed hard. "If 
 they won't they'll never know me either," 
 he said. "We'll work it out together, Effie; 
 only you must read and study while we are 
 here. You'll be glad, when we get to some
 
 242 Guam and Effie 
 
 livelier place, that you put your time in well 
 while you could." 
 
 "How long will it be before we go to the 
 livelier place ? I mean, how long will we 
 be here ?" 
 
 "About two years that's the usual term 
 of duty." 
 
 Effie gasped. Two years ! They had been 
 there not quite four months. Twenty more 
 months ! Eighty-eight weeks ! Six hundred 
 and five days ! In the silence the cocoanut- 
 palm sounded like a giant file against the 
 wall; the waves gave a gloating chuckle as 
 they broke lazily on the sand. 
 
 "Doctor and Mrs. Putnam and Major 
 Forde are going on the transport that stops 
 day after to-morrow," said Effie. 
 
 "Good riddance to Forde. The new marine 
 officer is a nice fellow, but his wife is another 
 one of the card-sharps." 
 
 Mrs. Putnam and Major Forde, her only 
 bulwarks against the unending days ! Effie 
 pressed her hands over her eyes. 
 
 Hugh, glancing up, noticed the whiteness 
 of her face. "Aren't you feeling well, Effie ?" 
 he asked anxiously. " You'd better go to
 
 Guam and Effie 243 
 
 bed. I'll have to be at the office late to-mor- 
 row evening, getting out those specifications 
 the governor decided on to-day. He wants 
 them to go on the transport. Don't wait 
 up for me, will you ?" 
 
 She shook her head. "I'm going to walk 
 until I get tired, to-morrow so I'll feel 
 sleepy," she said. 
 
 Hugh spoke again of her pallor when she 
 poured out his coffee at the breakfast-table. 
 "You had better lie low, Effie; it's going 
 to be a scorching day. The trade-wind has 
 dropped; it's preparing for a typhoon." 
 
 "I'll stick to the house," she promised. 
 
 After he had gone she moved about putting 
 things to rights, straightening the napkin that 
 did duty for a table-cover, rearranging the 
 folds of the curtains, interviewing the sleepy 
 cook and drowsy house boy. It was so hot 
 that the sky, like an inverted copper bowl, 
 was reflected in the still water. Effie looked 
 at the earth wavering feverishly in the heat 
 haze and, going to her bedroom, buried her 
 face in the pillows. 
 
 The morning crept by in leaden minutes. 
 After an interminable time she could hear 
 
 i
 
 244 Guam and Effie 
 
 the house boy setting the luncheon-table; 
 then Hugh came in, his white uniform wet 
 with perspiration. "Guess I'll have to take 
 time for a plunge," he called. 
 
 Effie lifted her aching head and shook back 
 her damp hair. "Is it as hot as this all the 
 time ?" she asked. 
 
 "No, later there's a rainy season when 
 everything mildews; your shoes grow green 
 whiskers, inside and out, overnight. But 
 cheer up, Effie ! To-day breaks all records. 
 You wouldn't mind so much if you'd read 
 and divert your mind." 
 
 "I haven't any mind to divert and it's 
 too hot to work it if I had," she answered 
 indifferently. 
 
 After luncheon she went back to her room 
 and lay, during the long afternoon, with her 
 face turned from the window. Sometimes 
 she dozed, coming back to consciousness 
 with a sharp jerk, like an animal pulled up 
 short by its tethering chain. At dinner-time 
 she changed her dress and tried to tidy her 
 hair, but the long red-gold strands clung to 
 her damp neck and wound tightly around 
 her arms with an almost fiendish persistency;
 
 Guam and Effie 245 
 
 roughly she pulled her hand loose, jarring 
 her head and bringing tears to her eyes. "I'd 
 think it was trying to see how miserable it 
 could make me," she fretted childishly. 
 
 At dinner even Hugh owned to being tired. 
 "Awful day ! I'll be home earlier than I 
 expected, though; we put things through 
 with a bang!" 
 
 "Don't have the house boy stay; I'd rather 
 have him asleep at home than in the kitchen. 
 Fll take down the old revolver, then I won't 
 be frightened," said Effie. 
 
 "I'd be frightened if I thought you would 
 try to use it," laughed Hugh. "Good-by, 
 dear, I'll be back in a couple of hours." 
 
 In her room, after locking the doors and 
 arming herself with the revolver, Effie sat 
 on the floor by a window and, resting her 
 elbows on the sill, looked out into the velvety 
 blackness of the tropical night. It was cooler; 
 the fishing-boats were out and the flare of 
 their dry cocoanut torches blossomed with 
 fitful intensity; deer, plundering gardens on 
 the outskirts of Agana, barked with impudent 
 recklessness; gecko lizards scurried across 
 the wall. The big stars seemed so near and
 
 246 Guam and Effie 
 
 bright as to be almost friendly. Effie felt 
 a lessening of the day's fever and tension. 
 
 "To-morrow," she thought, "I will begin 
 to take an interest," for in spite of his mother's 
 letter, Hugh talked to her of the future, never 
 intimating that they would not spend the 
 years ahead together. 
 
 She would like to discuss his mother's letter 
 with him, but dared not bring the subject 
 up. 
 
 "I'm going to begin studying to-morrow" 
 vowed Effie. "I may be a * creature/ but I 
 needn't be an ignorant one ! To-morrow I'll 
 begin ! To-morrow 
 
 A fumbling knock on the front door was 
 repeated. Effie went silently out, revolver 
 in hand. "Who's there ?" she called. 
 
 "Major Forde, Mrs. Meredith ! The trans- 
 port's sighted, and I didn't know whether 
 I'd have time to say good-by in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 She laughed as she opened the door. "I 
 was all ready!" she said, holding up the 
 pistol. 
 
 Major Forde balanced unsteadily in the 
 doorway. "Don't shoot me now" he begged.
 
 Guam and Effie 247 
 
 "I'm getting away in the morning! Saw 
 Hugh at the office and thought I'd drop in." 
 
 Effie glanced at his flushed face. "Good- 
 by party, I suppose," she commented dryly. 
 
 "You suppose correctly," he said, and sat 
 down. 
 
 Effie looked at him uneasily and wished 
 that he would go. Hugh would soon be home, 
 and wouldn't like finding the major there. 
 
 "Transport's in sight ! All aboard ! It's 
 a light trip hardly any one travelling," said 
 Major Forde. 
 
 Effie caught her breath. 
 
 "Better come along lots of room," he 
 said. 
 
 "How I wish I could !" she cried fervently. 
 
 "Come along! Mrs. Putnam's too sick 
 to leave her stateroom; she transfers to a 
 passenger steamer at the first stop, and no 
 one else will know the difference." 
 
 Effie stared at him scornfully. "Go with 
 you? Nothing like that!" she said with 
 brutal honesty. 
 
 An ugly look came into his face. "I'll 
 see your husband's mother and sister soon. 
 Want to send them any message ?" 

 
 248 Guam and Effie 
 
 "When I do I'll send it by some one they 
 know," answered Effie. 
 
 He stood up. "I'll be damned at the airs 
 the chorus puts on when it gets a chance ! 
 You'd better be grateful when people bother 
 to speak to you " 
 
 He stopped. 
 
 Hugh stood in the doorway. "I heard 
 what you said, Forde. Get out and be 
 quick about it," he said. 
 
 The major glared at him; his innate 
 cowardice bade him accept his humiliation 
 and sneak away, but the bravado and pre- 
 tense of years were second nature. "Fine 
 airs! Fine airs!" he bellowed. "Bringing 
 a chorus girl out here and trying to make 
 decent people think you're married to her ! 
 Guess you didn't fool me ! Guess you didn't 
 fool any one don't you dare strike at me /" 
 he shrieked, and snatched at the old revolver 
 lying on the table. 
 
 Over the noise of the scuffle and the thud 
 of an overturned chair Effie's scream, as she 
 dashed forward, mingled with the sharp re- 
 port of the revolver. 
 
 Then, as the smoke cleared, she tottered
 
 Guam and Effie 249 
 
 and fell, a limp heap, while a slowly spread- 
 ing stain showed startlingly against the white- 
 ness of her dress. 
 
 "Satisfied now, Forde ?" asked Hugh, and 
 knelt beside her as two officers, who had 
 heard the explosion, came breathlessly up 
 the steps. 
 
 She lived a few hours. 
 
 Toward dawn, in that still time when na- 
 ture seems to hold its breath, she regained 
 consciousness and whispered: "Hugh." Then 
 as he leaned to hear the feeble voice : " Don't 
 cry better so," she said. 
 
 Dumbly, the lonely soul looked through 
 her heavy eyes. "I read your mother's 
 letter. She won't mind now." Few words 
 and light to lie like an impassable barrier 
 across the years, separating the mother, 
 fiercely mourning her boy, from the man 
 who returned. 
 
 Outside the cool wind that ushers in the 
 dawn moved the palm-leaves stealthily 
 against the house; on the beach the slow 
 waves curved into foam. They sounded 
 clearly in the quiet room.
 
 250 Guam and Effie 
 
 She heard. The feeble ghost of her re- 
 pulsion flickered for a second in her face. 
 With the last of her strength she whispered: 
 "That tree and the sound of the water 
 how I hate them ".
 
 XII 
 FLAGS 
 
 THERE is only one flag that takes prece- 
 dence over the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 At a given hour on Sunday mornings 
 aboard the dreadnoughts and battleships of 
 the United States Navy the American flag 
 is hauled down. When it is hoisted again 
 it takes second place under the banner bear- 
 ing the emblem of the Church of God. Aboard 
 dreadnoughts, battleships, and transports of 
 the navy, except for the time that white flag 
 holds the place of honor, the chaplain is a 
 free-lance; but this does not mean that the 
 chaplain is idle. 
 
 The huge transport alongside the stone 
 pier had suddenly ceased being the centre 
 of interest. For ten days a constant stream 
 of cargo, provisions, army equipment, stores, 
 and baggage, had gone up the gangways, but 
 on this eleventh day, except for the usual 
 
 activities of the sailors the transports are 
 
 251
 
 254 Flags 
 
 ward ! The day before I left, one of the Germans ac- 
 tually thanked me for doing something ! I was startled ! 
 I couldn't decide whether to take his temperature or 
 paste an adhesive-plaster medal on him. 
 
 Quite unexpectedly before I went to my new ward 
 I was sent up to Paris about some delayed supplies, 
 and how I longed for you ! However, I did see three 
 American sailors and, except for their air of stern, un- 
 compromising rectitude in what they had evidently 
 been warned was a gay city, I should have gone up 
 and spoken to them and been snubbed for a brazen, 
 designing Jezzie-bell ! As it was, I smiled at them 
 to their great embarrassment. 
 
 Dad, dear, isn't it a beautiful privilege to be allowed 
 to help win this war ? All of us the boys in the army, 
 marine corps, and navy. You and I. The women 
 at home. Every one. Putting our shoulder to the 
 wheel, so that defenseless small nations may know 
 that to only a few blood-drunk, lust-mad brutes does 
 might make right. 
 
 Lately German aviators have been busily engaged 
 in trying to bomb our hospital buildings and the houses 
 where the nurses are lodged. It's boring, after you've 
 been on your feet all day and have just achingly hoisted 
 yourself into bed, to have to get up and speed down 
 to the cellar and cling to some one. I wish I had a 
 long-range voice and could hoot into those aviators' 
 ears: "Never touched us, you big bullies !" 
 
 But when it's all over all cleaned up you and I 
 are going to have our house in the country, with 
 mother's portrait over the mantel and you can raise 
 asparagus and I'll raise chickens. Do you mind if 
 I specialize on white Wyandottes ? I know that Rhode
 
 Flags 255 
 
 Island Reds are the best layers, but they're such a 
 homely color. 
 
 This letter should reach you before you leave Amer- 
 ica; I'll have another letter or a message waiting for 
 you when you arrive in France. I can't tell yet whether 
 I can get off or whether you'll have to visit me here. 
 At any rate, every day now will bring you nearer to 
 Yours most lovingly, dad, dear, ^ 
 
 P. S. Do you know that sometimes when the horror 
 of all this suffering used to get the better of me I longed 
 for our garden the one we are going to have. But 
 lately I've felt that I could almost plan how I would 
 have the flowers planted they are actually "casting 
 their shadows," they're so near! What is it you say 
 when you go into a room where some one is very ill: 
 "Peace to this house and all who dwell therein !" Isn't 
 it? 
 
 I wonder if any garden can ever equal the beautiful 
 peace of these scarred battle-fields when the wild flowers 
 and blossoming orchards cover them again ? God 
 grant it may be soon ! But, dad, I feel so strongly 
 that peace is very near. 
 
 The chaplain's eyes were bright with ex- 
 cited anticipation as he laid the letter down. 
 He could hardly wait to see his daughter 
 and tell her the great news. 
 
 A week ago, while spending forty-eight 
 hours* leave with a friend of divinity-school 
 days at his parsonage in a Connecticut vil-
 
 252 Flags 
 
 manned by officers and sailors of the navy 
 and the lowering of four gangways, two for- 
 ward, two aft, there was a suspension of ac- 
 tivities. 
 
 Breakfast in the improvised ward-room 
 was over. The chaplain, realizing that on 
 this eventful day there would be small op- 
 portunity for him to pursue his regular duties, 
 went to his cabin and after reading the lesson 
 for the day and, as was his practice, the lesson 
 for the approaching Sunday, turned to the 
 last mail, which had just been put aboard. 
 
 Such a quantity of letters ! Forwarded 
 from a dozen places by a score of harassed 
 officers to whom anxious relatives hoping to 
 reach an official eye and ear had written 
 last directions, messages, complaints, and 
 warnings. There was an almost monotonous 
 pathos in the recurrence of the words "my 
 boy." 
 
 The chaplain read all of them and made 
 many notes, commencing with a reassuring 
 letter to the worried wife of one of the trans- 
 port's crew who questioned: "The allotment 
 officer, in his report, changed my little girl 
 into a little boy. Will it make any difference
 
 Flags 253 
 
 in my allowance ?" and ending with a com- 
 forting answer to a tear-stained scrawl from 
 a sick and elderly mother. 
 
 "War is easiest on the men," commented 
 the chaplain, looking with wistful helpless- 
 ness at the pile of letters. 
 
 From outside, far away to landward, came 
 the high, faint call of bugles. On the trans- 
 port arose sounds of increasing activities; 
 a petty officer and a company of sailors 
 marched across the deck and descended to 
 the pier, where they were stationed in twos 
 at the foot of each gangway. The executive 
 officer called a sharp question, which the 
 officer of the deck changed to a quick com- 
 mand. Some noisy tugs approached. The 
 chaplain, unheeding, took up his last letter; 
 it was from his daughter, who as a Red Cross 
 nurse was serving in a hospital just behind 
 the lines. 
 
 DEAR DAD: 
 
 It seems too good to be true that I shall see you so 
 soon ! I'm counting the days. Well, I finished my 
 time in the wounded prisoners' ward satisfactorily. 
 If such a thing is possible, I worked even harder for 
 them than I do for our own men and I had my re-
 
 256 Flags 
 
 lage, the chaplain had gone for a walk to 
 the top of a near-by hill, and had chanced 
 upon the house of his dreams. White, and 
 low, and old, it nestled in a sheltered hollow 
 and faced seaward to where the Sound glinted 
 in the sunshine and gulls on flashing wings 
 swooped and quarrelled. And inside, a wide 
 centre hall just as Rose and he had so often 
 planned ! But the miracle the incredible 
 miracle had been disclosed when the brass- 
 knobbed door swung back on a square parlor, 
 panelled in white-painted wood from floor to 
 ceiling. 
 
 The chaplain, remembering Rose's wistful 
 remark, "We never can afford the real, so 
 we'd better not even think about it," had 
 gasped. "The original panelling?" he had 
 questioned barely above a whisper. 
 
 The woman who was showing him over 
 the house and who had told him that the 
 old farm was for sale because a son who had 
 gone West was "doing so well that he wanted 
 the old folks to join him," had nodded dis- 
 paragingly: 'That parlor's just the way 
 great-grandfather built it. We never had the 
 money to make any improvements." she said.
 
 Flags 257 
 
 The chaplain, pausing, had visualized the 
 mellow old room when Rose should have 
 installed their household treasures. Her 
 mother's portrait painted by a great artist 
 in the spontaneous days before fame had 
 claimed (and hampered) him would hang 
 on the wide panel over the fireplace. On 
 the narrow mantel would stand the ivory 
 carving acquired in Kyoto. There had only 
 been enough money to buy a kimono or the 
 carving, and Rose, after a longing glance at 
 the embroidered roses on the delicate silk 
 ground, had chosen the unfading beauty of 
 the Japanese maiden standing on tiptoes to 
 light a fragile ivory lantern "To guide you 
 safely home when your seagoing days are 
 over, dad," she had interpreted. Then there 
 were the Chinese bronze, the old embroidery, 
 the grooved and fretted Moro bowl waiting 
 patiently for that long-anticipated home. 
 
 And the price named for the house and 
 eight acres of orchard and meadow had been 
 within obtainable reach. The chaplain had 
 paid the first instalment that day. 
 
 "It's too good to be true!" the chaplain 
 had whispered, standing in the neglected
 
 258 Flags 
 
 garden and looking to where the gnarled 
 old apple-trees showed the pink of blossoms 
 against an unclouded sky, and irregular stone 
 fences were silvery gray across the spring- 
 time green. From somewhere near a robin 
 had fluttered down and, balancing, had called 
 and waited and called again. 
 
 That robin was a last drop in the brim- 
 ming measure of the chaplain's delight and 
 satisfaction. He could hardly wait to tell 
 Rose 
 
 Across his day-dream the increasing noise 
 outside struck sharply. The bugles were very 
 near now and drums added their pulse-like 
 beat. In the passageway the doctor, hurrying 
 past, called cheerily: "Better get up on deck, 
 padre they're coming!" 
 
 Quickly the chaplain gathered up the 
 scattered letters into a neat pile and, putting 
 away his books, reached the deck just as 
 the bugles sounded at the pier end and the 
 band swung into position. There was a flash 
 of red, white, and blue as the flag whipped 
 out on the breeze and the color-bearers 
 wheeled into line. Again the bugles, high 
 and clear, sang their overlapping orders;
 
 Flags 259 
 
 behind the flag, row on row, filling the wide 
 pier with the olive drab of their uniforms, 
 came the men of America's new army, and 
 marched toward the transport, while the 
 band fared cheerfully into the music of "The 
 Long Trail." 
 
 The doctor and the chaplain watched the 
 lines of soldiers advance and divide. At the 
 foot of the gangways, sailors, stationed there, 
 threw around each soldier's neck a cord, to 
 which was attached a card bearing the number 
 of that soldier's compartment, his bunk, and 
 his food-station. Also certain instructions 
 for troops. 
 
 At the top of the gangways naval officers 
 waited and, when one hundred and fifty sol- 
 diers had gathered, led them to the compart- 
 ment assigned. And all the time the band 
 played steadily the songs of the old and new 
 armies: "The Girl I Left Behind Me," "Tip- 
 perary," "Good-by, Dolly Gray," "Sons of 
 America," "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys 
 Are Marching," "There'll Be a Hot Time," 
 and "Over There." 
 
 For two hours the monotonous tramp of 
 marching feet continued, broken only by
 
 260 Flags 
 
 the occasional soldier who lost step smuggling 
 some favorite animal aboard. "When all 
 those felines get shaken down and feel at 
 home, we will wake up some night and imag- 
 ine that the ship has sprouted a back fence," 
 remarked the doctor, as he observed the 
 struggles of one youthful soldier and a large, 
 unabashed, and needlessly conspicuous gray 
 cat. 
 
 "He's hungry so am I!" volunteered the 
 boy. 
 
 So were all of them. Hardly were they 
 aboard when they became one vociferous, 
 empty interrogation-point. The tugs, puffing 
 and shrieking alongside, assailed ears that 
 were deaf to all sound but the impending 
 mess-call. Lined up, their mess-gear in hand, 
 they were conscious that the ship moved 
 and did not care when, promptly at noon, 
 more than a dozen modern cafeterias broke 
 all speed records in serving food to the long 
 lines of marching men. Thousands of sol- 
 diers were fed in less than twenty minutes. 
 
 In the ward-room the executive officer 
 took his seat at one end of the lengthened 
 table and smiled at the chaplain, far away
 
 Flags 261 
 
 at the foot. "Our family's grown, padre," 
 he called cheerfully. "Feel as though I were 
 looking at you through the wrong end of a 
 telescope !" 
 
 The army officers commanding the regi- 
 ments aboard joined in the conversation 
 gradually. Slowly there came the hum of 
 the engines the transport was under way. 
 
 When the chaplain joined the officers in 
 the ward-room for breakfast the next morn- 
 ing the transport was well out to sea and 
 already, among the thousands of men aboard, 
 an organization for efficiency in the daily 
 routine, and in case of emergency, was being 
 perfected. The chaplain, returning to his 
 cabin, heard the army officers explaining to 
 their men the need of cleanliness. "They 
 were not to add to the work of the transport's 
 crew by throwing anything on the decks. 
 And nothing was to be thrown overboard, 
 for fear of leaving a trail by which an enemy's 
 submarine could track them over the road 
 of the sea. Every compartment must be 
 ready to bear inspection at all times." 
 
 The chaplain finished reading the lesson
 
 262 Flags 
 
 for the day just as the bugle sounded "quar- 
 ters," and he lined up with the other naval 
 officers who handed the report for their divi- 
 sions to the executive officer and accounted 
 for such sailors as were absent in the sick- 
 bay or the brig. The chaplain, having no 
 department, merely answered, "At quarters, 
 sir," when his turn came. ("I'm always glad 
 to know that you haven't fallen overboard, 
 padre," the executive had jocularly remarked 
 when, at different times, the chaplain had 
 absent-mindedly forgotten "quarters.") 
 
 This finished, the chaplain started on his 
 rounds. The sick-bay harbored three pa- 
 tients, and the chaplain spent an argumenta- 
 tive hour discussing the Red Sox's last game. 
 Perhaps because he had been a well-known 
 athlete during his college days, his reign as 
 umpire of games between the baseball and 
 football teams of rival ships had outlasted 
 that of many less-qualified judges, partic- 
 ularly as the chaplain had acquired the neces- 
 sary boon of deafness during certain hotly 
 contested crises. 
 
 "I guess it's lucky that I really don't un- 
 derstand what they are yelling, sometimes,"
 
 Flags 263 
 
 the chaplain explained apologetically to the 
 executive, who was only too glad to enlist 
 "the padre's" assistance in dealing with a 
 certain type of sullen trouble-maker. It was 
 an unusual brand of moodiness that could 
 withstand a boxing-bout with the chaplain, 
 who staged his performance on the hilarious 
 lower deck. 
 
 Outside, as he left the sick-bay, he stopped 
 to watch a company of soldiers who were 
 taking instruction in the adjustment and use 
 of life-preservers, and smiled to see one in- 
 tent lad seriously considering their adapt- 
 ability to his feet. 
 
 "That attempt to stand on the water never 
 gets outlawed," mused the chaplain, edging 
 his way past a group that were busily en- 
 gaged in preparing a mountainous heap of 
 vegetables for dinner. 
 
 The brig was sparsely tenanted; the chap- 
 lain, after a short talk with the sailor there, 
 found the trouble to be one of misunderstand- 
 ing rather than the apparently deliberate 
 intention of wrong-doing. A few moments' 
 conversation with the executive released the 
 prisoner and returned him to the busy deck,
 
 264 Flags 
 
 where lookouts were being selected and in- 
 structed, boat drills carried forward, meals 
 being prepared, watches arranged, and clean- 
 ing and scrubbing always under way. 
 
 On deck, as the soldiers lined up for mess- 
 call, some one started a song. Around the 
 ship it swept from one group to another; 
 a second and third song followed until the 
 opening of the cafeterias made a vitally im- 
 portant and serious interruption. 
 
 At the ward-room luncheon-table the chap- 
 lain found himself precipitated into a dis- 
 cussion on the nationality of religions and 
 was promptly appealed to for a decision. "I 
 didn't hear the first of this," he apologized. 
 
 An army officer leaned forward: "I started 
 it, sir, with a story that one of the English 
 naval officers in Washington told me. It 
 was about sending church-parties ashore from 
 their ships when they are in port, and he 
 said: 'So, on Sunday morning, when the 
 ship's company was mustered, I called out: 
 "Church of England, fall in on the right ! 
 Catholic Church, fall in on the left ! Fancy 
 religions, fall in at the rear!" and still there 
 were three men left over. "Why didn't you
 
 Flags 265 
 
 fall in?" I demanded. "We didn't know 
 where we belonged," one of them answered, 
 and added: "We're Mormons!" 
 
 * Did you ever hear such cheeky beggars ? 
 "Mormons!" I told them. "Well, if that 
 isn't fancy I don't know what is." And 
 then he asked me: 'It's an American religion 
 purely, isn't it?'." 
 
 "Is it, padre?" called several voices. But 
 the chaplain laughed and denied any infor- 
 mation on the subject. 
 
 "If there's one person in the world that 
 doesn't know anything about fancy religion 
 it's the padre," affirmed the executive warmly, 
 and added to the army officer next him: "The 
 chaplain's the finest sportsman I know with 
 all a sportsman's intolerance of cowards or 
 sneaks." 
 
 After luncheon he spent two busy hours 
 giving out books from the library, answering 
 questions about new regulations, compulsory 
 and voluntary allotments, and explaining 
 the new war-insurance act. 
 
 "Of course I know it's good," he assured 
 a cautious sailor. "I wouldn't sleep so well 
 at night if I didn't know that, in case any-
 
 266 Flags 
 
 thing happens to me, I've taken out enough 
 insurance to give my daughter a start." 
 
 Later the chaplain had his first intimate 
 view of the soldiers, who when not busy spent 
 their time on deck. Shyly he approached 
 them, wondering if they were discussing the 
 hardships they would bear, the sacrifices they 
 must make, the battles in which, no doubt, 
 some of them would lay down their lives. 
 
 But no ! The conversations swung from 
 the dignitaries of their little home towns 
 to the leading characters in the latest Broad- 
 way shows; from the description of a closely 
 contested polo-match to the grim details of 
 a coal-mine accident; from the account of 
 the escapades of a college fraternity's hazing 
 delegates to a laconic outline of the experi- 
 ences of a band of prospectors during a desert 
 sand-storm. 
 
 The chaplain went from group to group of 
 the heterogeneous crowd who, in response to 
 the call of their country, had put on the khaki 
 or the blue. There were men from all the 
 professions; there were multimillionaires and 
 laborers; country lads who had never seen 
 more water than flows through a farmyard
 
 Flags 267 
 
 pasture; adventurers who had voyaged on 
 all the Seven Seas; men from little hamlets; 
 others, familiar with the great cities of every 
 continent; men speaking three or four lan- 
 guages, and others who could scarcely achieve 
 understandable English. 
 
 "It's amazing!" mused the chaplain, 
 searching about for lonely or homesick-look- 
 ing boys in need of cheering. 
 
 Later he drifted into the daily moving- 
 picture show and viewed the hair-raising 
 episodes of a modern cinema courtship. This 
 reel was followed by a film depicting the visit 
 by a murderously inclined tramp to a lonely 
 house, where a lady in evening dress, after 
 a heartrending scene with her mercenary 
 and nomadic cook, faced the very long, very 
 dark night unprotected. When this was 
 finished the chaplain thankfully moved out- 
 side and enjoyed a few moments of unalloyed 
 gratitude for the kindly fate that permitted 
 him to pursue a quiet and peaceful life aboard 
 the transports traversing the war zone. 
 
 "There's nothing for me to do here," de- 
 cided the chaplain. "Guess I'll tackle some 
 of those letters."
 
 268 Flags 
 
 But before he sat down at his desk he 
 paused a second. Far away he saw a low 
 white house facing seaward and an orchard 
 where robins called from blossoming apple- 
 trees. The chaplain was growing old and 
 Rose and home, and happiness beckoned 
 enticingly. 
 
 Long afterward, looking back over the 
 events of that voyage, the chaplain remem- 
 bered with curious clearness that each lesson 
 for the day had seemed, with a strange in- 
 sistence, to sound a note of warning. Almost 
 monotonously the old prophets called across 
 the centuries their messages against the futil- 
 ity of human hopes and plans. Ezekiel that 
 "son of man" from whom the desire of his 
 eyes was taken at a single stroke; Isaiah 
 Hosea and each day he read the lesson for 
 Sunday, Solomon's prayer at the dedication 
 of the temple, with its supplication: "And 
 when thou nearest, forgive." But he went 
 his unheeding way. 
 
 His hours were crowded with varied duties. 
 He was, to the crew, an encyclopaedia of in- 
 formation on all sorts of subjects, and already
 
 Flags 269 
 
 he was scheduled to preside at several wed- 
 dings and christenings when the ship should 
 be in port, after the return voyage. He taught 
 a school for those desiring to attend; he gave 
 short talks on French history, and his volun- 
 tary audiences soon outgrew the quarters 
 assigned; he held a Bible class. And the 
 letters received from the relatives of soldiers 
 on the day the transport sailed must be an- 
 swered and, when the voyage was over, the 
 sentence added: "To-day I saw your boy, 
 well and happy, land, and march away upon 
 the soil of France." Meanwhile the busy 
 hours sped by; the end of the journey was 
 near. 
 
 Sunday morning found the transport on 
 the edge of the war zone, and, even as the 
 bugler sounded church-call, the lookouts were 
 trebled and gunners took their places at the 
 loaded guns. 
 
 On the quarter-deck row after row of mess- 
 benches filled the entire space; chairs, for 
 the captain and officers, stood at right angles, 
 facing the improvised altar a table, covered 
 with an altar-cloth, and holding a brass cross.
 
 270 Flags 
 
 Behind it, against the bulkhead, was draped 
 an American flag; in front of the altar, to 
 the right, was the pulpit; to the left the port- 
 able organ. 
 
 Promptly, in answer to the bugle-call, a 
 steady stream of soldiers and sailors came 
 from all directions, until every foot of avail- 
 able space was filled. The captain and officers 
 took their places; a master-at-arms reported 
 all aft, and the chaplain, stepping to the 
 pulpit, gave out the hymn. It was an old 
 hymn, and they sang it vigorously thou- 
 sands of boyish voices ringing out across the 
 serene, sunshiny sea. The lesson for the day 
 emphasized the general peacefulness. It was 
 Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the 
 temple that prayer with an almost bell- 
 like refrain: "Forgive, forgive, forgive/' 
 
 There followed another hymn; then the 
 chaplain read the text and commenced his 
 sermon. It was very little like a sermon 
 ashore; no tinge of "fancy religion" colored 
 the plain, straightforward discourse. The 
 chaplain had been dealing with enlisted men 
 for years; he knew their problems and their 
 temptations, as well as their tendencies toward
 
 Flags 271 
 
 certain mistakes, and watching their intent 
 faces, he knew when a remark went home 
 as he warned, explained, rebuked, in words 
 of incontrovertible simplicity. And in clos- 
 ing he spoke of courage that high, clear 
 answer to the call of duty which has nothing 
 in common with bravado or excitement or 
 the enthusiasms that are so often only imita- 
 tive. 
 
 The service ended with the singing of the 
 national anthem. 
 
 During the last verse commotion spread 
 among the men nearest the rail, and, even 
 as the chaplain pronounced the benediction, 
 "The peace of God which passeth all un- 
 derstanding " an orderly waited impatiently 
 to report to the captain, "Convoy of de- 
 stroyers sighted, sir!" and the men crowded 
 to get a view of the slim, knife-bowed grey- 
 hounds advancing, with amazing rapidity, 
 on the scent of trouble. Swiftly they came, 
 swept in a wide circle, and fell in their places, 
 passing so close that, as they swung into 
 formation, the chaplain, going to his cabin, 
 overheard a junior naval officer on the trans- 
 port under cover of the soldiers' cheering
 
 272 Flags 
 
 warily hail a chum on the bridge of the nearest 
 destroyer: "Hi, Muggy! Made a special 
 trip to Philadelphia to see your new son ! 
 Looks like you but maybe he'll outgrow 
 it!" 
 
 That night every one aboard the transport 
 was ordered to sleep in their clothes and to 
 wear life-preservers, and in the passages dim 
 blue lights marked, at rare intervals, the 
 turns or ladders. 
 
 But in the morning land was in sight 
 and later a port in France; a great, cheering 
 crowd; the excited confusion of the soldiers, 
 packing; good-bys; a stone pier; the lowered 
 gangways; once more the monotonous tramp 
 of feet, this time turned shoreward and over 
 all the sprightly cheerfulness of the band, 
 the call of bugles. The voyage was over. 
 
 The chaplain, after numberless good wishes 
 and a lengthy stand at the rail watching 
 the protracted disembarkation, turned tiredly 
 away as the last row of olive-drab uniforms 
 disappeared between the cheering crowds up 
 the old street. 
 
 Already the tide of cargo was turning again 
 toward the ship; some mail-bags were com-
 
 Flags 273 
 
 ing aboard, and the chaplain, remembering 
 Rose's promised letter or message, hailed the 
 passing orderly. 
 
 "Why, yes, sir," the sailor answered. "I 
 couldn't find you, so I left a telegram in your 
 cabin, about five minutes ago." 
 
 Joyously the chaplain hurried to get it. 
 He had forgotten, in the depression of seeing 
 the young soldiers go ashore, that his daughter 
 was so near. Perhaps the despatch would 
 tell him that, in a few hours, he would see 
 Rose and tell her of the old house, the panelled 
 parlor, the blossoming orchard where robins 
 sang. When the war was over, there need 
 be no delay in hanging the portrait over the 
 fireplace and domiciling the white chickens. 
 
 But first, perhaps, they might have a vaca- 
 tion together in Paris, if Rose could get away. 
 There were pictures and statues to see; 
 churches and tombs to visit; a present to 
 be bought. Rose's twenty-fourth birthday 
 was next week, and even in war times wrist- 
 watches must be for sale in Paris. She didn't 
 care for jewelry but a watch was different. 
 
 And if she couldn't get away he must find 
 how to get to her, for, after all, that was the
 
 274 Flags 
 
 main thing. Outside, the executive officer, 
 hurrying past, called, "Good luck and a 
 good time, padre," as the chaplain tore open 
 the envelope and read the message. 
 
 Long afterward when he raised his head 
 and faced the future, the years stretched 
 grayly beyond. There would be no old house 
 looking seaward no fireplace with a portrait 
 above it. The robin had flown with the un- 
 returning spring and Rose with the bright 
 hair the deft fingers so quick to aid the sick 
 or suffering the happy spirit that answered 
 so readily to laughter or tears crushed into 
 silence. 
 
 The German aviators had struck their 
 target under the Red Cross flag. 
 
 For every human being there is some key 
 that unlocks the gates of memory. It may 
 be the vagrant scent of lilies; a bar of music; 
 the aching grind of car-wheels; the intona- 
 tion of a voice; the earliest call of a bird 
 across the dawn; the sight of rain-soaked, 
 wind-blown lilacs; the lilt of an old song; 
 the grim smell of hospital waiting-rooms
 
 Flags 275 
 
 and behold ! the gates swing back on the 
 garden of memory, dream-heavy days of 
 other years, and the drenching radiance of 
 the light that never was. 
 
 For the chaplain it is the sight of blue 
 smoke from the chimneys of small homes and 
 the words of a chapter in Kings Solomon's 
 prayer at the dedication of the temple with 
 its lovely, bell-like refrain. In the chaplain's 
 work it recurs at intervals as part of the lesson 
 for the day, and he reads the stately, measured 
 words in a level, emotionless voice. 
 
 Statesmen may decide what constitutes 
 victory and reparation; when and where 
 flags may float and what they shall signify 
 to brave and honest men; but one flag and 
 the soldiers who serve under it the chaplain 
 will never forgive.
 
 fe / 
 
 
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