A Daughter of the Middle Border Part 43

He understood, and I went away feeling more at ease. I relied on Uncle Frank's interest in him.

Now, it chanced that just before the date of our return to the Homestead, Lily Morris, wife of the newly-appointed amba.s.sador to Sweden, invited my wife and children to accompany her on a trip to the Big Horn Mountains and we were all torn between opposing duties and desires.

Eager to see "Papa's Mountains," yet loath to lose anything of dear old West Salem, Mary Isabel was pathetically perplexed. Connie was all for West Salem but Zulime who knew the charm of the West decided to go, and again I visited Father to tell him the news and to explain that we would all be with him in August. The fear of disappointing him was the only cloud on the happy prospect.

With a feeling of guilt I met him with the news of our change of plan, softening the blow as best I could. He bore it composedly, though sadly, while I explained that I could not possibly have shown the children the mountains of my own accord. "I have some lectures in Colorado," I explained, "but I shall not be gone long."

"I had counted on seeing Zulime and the children next week," was all he said.

Just before my return to the city, he sent for a team, and together we drove down to the little Neshonoc burying ground. "I want to inspect your mother's grave," he explained.

On the way, as we were pa.s.sing a clump of wild roses, he asked me to stop and cut some of them. "Your mother was fond of wild roses," he said, "I'd like to put a handful on her grave."

The penetrating odor of those exquisite blooms brought to my mind vistas of the glorious sunlit, odorous prairies of Iowa, and to gather and put into his hand a spray of them, was like taking part in a poem--a poignant threnody of age, for he received them in silence, and held them with tender care, his mind far away in the past.

Silently we entered the gate of the burial ground, and slowly approached the mound under which my mother's body rested, and as I studied the thin form and bending head of my intrepid sire, I realized that he was in very truth treading the edge of his own grave. My eyes grew dim with tears and my throat ached with a sense of impending loss, and a pity for him which I could conceal only by looking away at the hills.

Nevertheless, he was calmer than I. "Here is where I want to lie," he said quietly and stooping, softly spread his sprays of roses above the mound. "She loved all the prairie flowers," he said, "but she specially liked wild roses. I always used to bring them to her from the fields. We had oceans of them in Dakota in those days."

It was a commonplace little burial ground with a few trees and here and there a bed of lilies or phlox, yet it had charm. It was a sunny and friendly place, a silent acre whose name and history went back to the beginning of the first white settlement in the valley. On its monuments were chiseled the familiar names of pioneers, and it was characteristic of the time and deeply characteristic of the McClintocks, to be told, by my father, that in some way the exact location of my grandmother's grave had been lost and that no stone marked the spot where my grandfather was buried.

We wandered around among the graves for half an hour while Father spoke of the men and women whose names were on the low and leaning stones.

"They were American," he said. "These German neighbors of ours are all right in their way, but it isn't our way. They are good citizens as far as they know how to be, but they don't think in our words. Soon there won't be any of the old families left. My world is just about gone, and so I don't mind going myself, only I want to go quick. I don't want to be bedridden for months as Vance McKinley was. If I could have my wish, I'd go out like a candle in a puff of wind,--and I believe that's the way I shall go."

It was a radiant June afternoon and as we drove back along the familiar lane toward the hills softened by the mist, we looked away over a valley throbbing with life and rich with the s.h.i.+ning abundance of growing grain--a rich and peaceful and lovely valley to me--but how much more it all meant to my father! Every hill had its memories, every turn in the road opened a vista into the past. The mill, the covered bridge, the lonely pine by the river's bank,--all, all spoke to him of those he had loved and lost.

With guilty reluctance I confessed that the return of the children had again been postponed. "Mrs. Morris cannot tell just when she will return--I fear not before the first of September. It is a wonderful opportunity for the children to see the mountains. I could not afford to take them on such a trip--much as I should like to do so--and there is no telling when such another opportunity will offer. Mary Isabel is just at the right age to remember all she sees and a summer in the mountains will mean much to her in after life. Even Constance will be profoundly changed by it. Zulime is sorry to disappoint you but she feels that it would be wrong to refuse such an opportunity."

He made no complaint, offered no further opposition, he only said gently and sadly, "Don't let them stay away too long. I want them here part of the summer. I miss them terribly--and you must remember my time on earth is nearly ended."

"We shall all be here in August," I a.s.sured him, "and I may return late in July."

This was the twelfth of June and as I left the house for the train the picture of that lonely, white-haired man, sitting at the window, took away all the antic.i.p.ation of pleasure with which our expedition had filled my mind. I was minded to decline the wondrous opportunity and send the children to the old Homestead and their grandsire.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A Soldier of the Union Mustered Out

On my return to Chicago, I made good report of Father's condition and said nothing of his forebodings, for I wanted Zulime to start on her vacation in entire freedom from care. Had it not been for my lecture engagements I might not have gone with them, but as certain dates were fixed, I bought tickets for myself on the same train which Mrs. Morris had taken, and announced my intention to travel with the party at least as far as Sheridan. "I want to watch the children's faces and hear their words of delight when they see the mountains," I explained to Mrs.

Morris. "My lectures at the Colorado Normal School do not begin till the second week in July--so that I can be with you part of the time."

My decision gave the final touch to the children's happiness. They liked their s.h.a.ggy father--I don't know why, but they did--and during the days of preparation their voices were filled with bird-like music. They were palpitant with joy.

On the day appointed the Morris automobile called for us and took us to the train, and when the children found that they were to travel in a private pullman and that the stateroom was to be their own little house they were transported with pride. Thereafter they knew nothing of heat or dust or weariness. Their meals came regularly, and they went to bed in their berths with warbles of satisfaction.

The plains of the second day's travel absorbed them. The prairie dogs, the herds of cattle, the cactus blooms all came in for joyous recognition. They had read about them: now here they were in actuality.

"Are those the mountains?" asked Mary Isabel as we came in sight of the b.u.t.tes of Eastern Wyoming. "No, only hills," I replied.

Then, at last, came the Big Horns deep blue and lined with snow. Mary Isabel's eyes expanded with awe. "Oh, they are so much finer than I expected them to be," she said, and from that moment, she gave them her adoration. They were papa's mountains and hence not to be feared. "Are we really going up there?" she asked. "Yes," I replied pointing out Cloud Peak, "we shall go up almost directly toward that highest mountain of all."

At a camp just above Big Horn City we spent a month of just the sort of riding, trailing and camping which I was eager to have my children know, and in a few days under my instruction, they both learned to sit a horse in fearless confidence. Mary Isabel, who was eleven, accompanied me on a ride to Cloud Peak Lake, a matter of twenty miles over a rough trail, and came into camp almost unwearied. She was a chip of the old block in this regard, and as I listened to her cheery voice and looked down into her s.h.i.+ning face I was a picture of shameless parental pride. For several weeks I was able to remain with them and then at last set forth for Colorado on my lecture tour.

Meanwhile, unsuspected by Americans, colossal armies were secretly mobilizing in Europe, and on August first, whilst we were on our way home, the sound of cannon proclaimed to the world the end of one era and the beginning of another. Germany announced to the rulers of the Eastern Hemisphere that she intended to dominate not merely the land but the seas, and in my quiet hotel in a Colorado college town this proclamation found amazed readers. I, for one, could not believe it--even after my return to Chicago in August, while the papers were shouting "War! War!"

I remained unconvinced. Germany's program seemed monstrous, impossible.

The children and their mother arrived two days later and to Zulime I said "Father is patiently waiting for us and in the present state of things West Salem seems a haven, of rest. We must go to him at once."

She was willing and on August six, two days after England declared war, the old soldier met us, looking thin and white but so happy in our coming that his health seemed miraculously restored.

With joyous outcry the children sprang to his embrace and Zulime kissed him with such sincerity of regard that he gave her a convulsive hug.

"Oh, but I'm glad to see you!" he exclaimed while tears of joy glistened on his cheeks.

"Well, Father, what do you think about the European situation?" I asked.

"I don't know what to think," he gravely answered. "It starts in like a big war, the biggest the world has ever seen. If you can believe what the papers say, the Germans have decided to eat up France."

Although physically weaker, he was mentally alert and read his _Tribune_ with a kind of religious zeal. The vastness of the German armies, the enormous weight and power of their cannons, and especially the tremendous problem of their commissariat staggered his imagination. "I don't see how they are going to maintain all those troops," he repeated.

"How can they shelter and clothe and feed three million men?"

To him, one of Sherman's soldiers, who had lived for days on parched corn stolen from the feedboxes of the mules, the description of wheeled ovens, and hot soup wagons appeared mere fiction. Although appalled by the rush of the Prussian line, he was confident that the Allies would check the invasion. Sharply resenting the half-veiled pro-Germanism of some of his neighbors, he declared hotly: "They claim to be loyal to America, but they are hoping the Kaiser will win. I will not trade with such men."

How far away it all seemed on those lovely nights when with my daughters beside me I lay on their broad bed out on the upper porch and heard the crickets sleepily chirping and the wind playing with the leaves in the maples. To Connie's sensitive ears the rustle suggested stealthy feet and pa.s.sing wings--but to me came visions of endless rivers of helmeted soldiers flowing steadily remorselessly through Belgium, and Mary Isabel said, "Papa, don't you think of going to war. I won't let you."

"They wouldn't take me anyway," I replied, "I'm too old. You needn't worry."

I could not conceal from myself the fact that my father's work was almost done. That he was failing was sorrowfully evident. He weeded the garden no more. Content to sit in a chair on the back porch or to lie in a hammock under the maples, he spent long hours with me or with Zulime, recalling the battles of the Civil War, or relating incidents of the early history of the valley.

He still went to his club each night after supper, but the walk was getting to be more and more of a task, and he rejoiced when we found time to organize a game of cinch at home. This we very often did, and sometimes, even in the middle of the afternoon I called him in to play with me; for with a great deal of time on his hands he was restless. "I can't read all the time," he said, "and most of the fellows are busy during the middle of the day."

Each morning regular as the clock he went to the post-office to get his paper, and at lunch he was ready to discuss the news of the battles which had taken place. After his meal he went for a little work in the garden, for his hatred of weeds was bitter. He could not endure to have them overrun his crops. They were his Huns, his menacing invaders.

In this fas.h.i.+on he approached his eighty-fourth birthday. His manner was tranquil, but I knew that he was a little troubled by some outstanding notes which he had signed in order to purchase a house for my brother in Oklahoma, and to cure this I bought up these papers, canceled them and put them under his breakfast plate. "I want him to start his eighty-fifth year absolutely clear of debt," I said to Zulime.

He was much affected by the discovery of these papers. It pleased him to think that I had the money to spare. It was another evidence of my prosperity.

Nearly half of _A Son of the Middle Border_ had now been printed and while he had read it he was shy about discussing it. Something almost sacred colored the pictures which my story called up. Its songs and sayings vibrated deep, searching the foundation chords of his life. They told of a bright world vanished, a landscape so beautiful that it hurt to have some parts of it revealed to aliens--and yet he was glad of it and talked of it to his comrades.

Zulime made a birthday cake for him and the children decorated it, and when Mary Isabel brought it in with all its candles lighted, and we lifted our triumphant song, he was overwhelmed with happiness and pride.

"I never had a birthday cake or a birthday celebration before in all my life," he said, and we hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry at that confession.

We ended the day by singing for him--that was the best of it all; for both the children could now join with me in voicing the tunes which he loved. They knew his enthusiasms and were already faithful heirs of his traditions. Singers of the future, they loved to hear him recount the past.

All through the month of September as we walked our peaceful way in Wisconsin the Germans were pounding at the gates of Paris. It comforts me at this moment to recall how peaceful my father was. He heard of the war only as of a far-off storm. He had us all, all but Franklin, and there was no bitterness in his voice as he spoke of his increasing uselessness. "I'm only a pa.s.senger now," he said. "I've finished my work."