Queed Part 43

"Was your father in the war?"

"Was he in the war? My dear sir, you might say that he was the war. But you could sc.r.a.pe this town with a fine-tooth comb without finding anybody of his age that wasn't in the war."

The necessity for a new demonstration checked his speech for a moment.

Queed said: "Who are these veterans? What sort of people are they?"

"The finest fellows in the world," said the young man. "An occasional dead-beat among them, of course, but it's amazing how high an average of character they strike, considering that they came out of four years of war--war's demoralizing, you know!--with only their s.h.i.+rts to their backs, and often those were only borrowed. You'll find some mighty solid business men in the ranks out there, and then on down to the humblest occupations. Look! See that little one-legged man with the beard that everybody's cheering! That's Corporal Henkel of Petersburg, commended I don't know how many times for bravery, and they would have given him the town for a keepsake when it was all over, if he had wanted it. Well, Henkel's a cobbler--been one since '65--and let me tell you he's a blamed good one, and if you're ever in Petersburg and want any half-soling done, let me tell you--Yea-a-a! See that trim-looking one with the little mustache--saluting now? He tried to save Stonewall Jackson's life on the 2d of May, 1863,--threw himself in front of him and got badly potted. He's a D.D. now. Yea-a-a-a!"

A victoria containing two lovely young girls, sponsor and maid of honor for South Carolina, dressed just alike, with parasols and enormous hats, rolled by. The girls smiled kindly at the young man, and he went through a very proper salute.

"Watch the people!" he dashed on eagerly. "Wonderful how they love these old soldiers, isn't it?--they'd give 'em anything! And what a fine thing that is for them!--for the people, not the soldiers, I mean. I tell you we all give too much time to practical things--business--making money--taking things away from each other. It's a fine thing to have a day now and then which appeals to just the other side of us--a regular sentimental spree. Do you see what I mean? Maybe I'm talking like an a.s.s.... But when you talk about Americans, Mr. Queed--let me tell you that there isn't a State in the country that is raising better Americans than we are raising right here in this city. We're as solid for the Union as Boston. But that isn't saying that we have forgotten all about the biggest happening in our history--the thing that threw over our civilization, wiped out our property, and turned our State into a graveyard. If we forgot that, we wouldn't be Americans, because we wouldn't be men."

He went on fragmentarily, ever and anon interrupting himself to give individual ovations to his heroes and his G.o.ds:--

"Through the North and West you may have one old soldier to a village; here we have one to a house. For you it was a foreign war, which meant only dispatches in the newspapers. For us it was a war on our own front lawns, and the way we followed it was by the hea.r.s.es backing up to the door. You can hardly walk a mile in any direction out of this city without stumbling upon an old breastworks. And in the city--well, you know all the great old landmarks, all around us as we stand here now. On this porch behind us sits a lady who knew Lee well. Many's the talk she had with him after the war. My mother, a bride then, sat in the pew behind Davis that Sunday he got the message which meant that the war was over. History! Why this old town drips with it. Do you think we should forget our heroes, Mr. Queed? Up there in Ma.s.sachusetts, if you have a place where John Samuel Quincy Adams once stopped for a cup of tea, you fence it off, put a bra.s.s plate on the front door, and charge a nickel to go in. Which will history say is the greater man, Sam Adams or Robert F. Lee? If these were Was.h.i.+ngton's armies going by, you would probably feel a little excited, though you have had a hundred and twenty years to get used to Yorktown and the Philadelphia Congress. Well, Was.h.i.+ngton is no more to the nation than Lee is to the South.

"But don't let anybody get concerned about our patriotism. We're better Americans, not worse, because of days like these, the reason being, as I say, that we are better men. And if your old Uncle Sammy gets into trouble some day, never fear but we'll be on hand to pull him out, with the best troops that ever stepped, and another Lee to lead them."

Somewhere during the afternoon there had returned to Queed the words in which Sharlee Weyland had pointed out to him--quite unnecessarily--that he was standing here between two civilizations. On the porch now sat Miss Weyland's grandmother, representative of the dead aristocracy. By his side stood, clearly, a representative of the rising democracy--one of those "splendid young men" who, the girl thought, would soon be beating the young men of the North at every turn. It was valuable professionally to catch the point of view of these new democrats; and now he had grasped the fact that whatever the changes in outward form, it had an unbroken sentimental continuity with the type which it was replacing.

"Did you ever hear Ben Hill's tribute to Lee?" inquired the young man presently.

Queed happened to know it very well. However, the other could not be restrained from reciting it for his own satisfaction.

"It is good--a good piece of writing and a fine tribute," said Queed.

"However, I read a shorter and in some ways an even better one in _Harper's Weekly_ the other day."

"_Harper's Weekly!_ Good Heavens! They'll find out that William Lloyd Garrison was for us next. What'd it say?"

"It was in answer to some correspondents who called Lee a traitor. The editor wrote five lines to say that, while it would be exceedingly difficult ever to make 'traitor' a word of honorable distinction, it would be done if people kept on applying it to Lee. In that case, he said, we should have to find a new word to mean what traitor means now."

The young man thought this over until its full meaning sank into him. "I don't know how you could say anything finer of a man," he remarked presently, "than that applying a disgraceful epithet to him left him entirely untouched, but changed the whole meaning of the epithet. By George, that's pretty fine!"

"My only criticism on the character, or rather on the greatness, of Lee," said Queed, introspectively, "is that, so far as I have ever read, he never got angry. One feels that a hero should be a man of terrible pa.s.sions, so strong that once or twice in his life they get away from him. Was.h.i.+ngton always seems a bigger man because of his blast at Charles Lee."

The young man seemed interested by this point of view. He said that he would ask Mrs. Beauregard about it.

Not much later he said with a sigh: "Well!--It's about over. And now I must pay for my fun--duck back to the office for a special night session."

Queed had taken a vague fancy to this youth, whose enviably pleasant manners reminded him somehow of Charles Gardiner West. "I supposed that it was only in newspaper offices that work went on without regard to holidays."

The young man laughed, and held out his hand. "I'm very industrious, if you please. I'm delighted to have met you, Mr. Queed--I've known of you for a long time. My name's Byrd--Beverley Byrd--and I wish you'd come and see me some time. Good-by. I hope I haven't bored you with all my war-talk. I lost a grandfather and three uncles in it, and I can't help being interested."

The last of the parade went by; the dense crowd broke and overran the street; and Queed stood upon the bottom step taking his leave of Miss Weyland. Much interested, he had lingered till the other guests were gone; and now there was n.o.body upon the porch but Miss Weyland's mother and grandmother, who sat at the further end of it, the eyes of both, did Mr. Queed but know it, upon him.

"Why don't you come to see me sometimes?" the daughter and granddaughter was saying sweetly. "I think you will have to come now, for this was a party, and a party calls for a party-call. Oh, can you make as clever a pun as that?"

"Thank you--but I never pay calls."

"Oh, but you are beginning to do a good many things that you never did before."

"Yes," he answered with curious depression. "I am."

"Well, don't look so glum about it. You mustn't think that any change in your ways of doing is necessarily for the worse!"

He refused to take up the cudgels; an uncanny thing from him. "Well! I am obliged to you for inviting me here to-day. It has been interesting and--instructive."

"And now you have got us all neatly docketed on your sociological operating table, I suppose?"

"I am inclined to think," he said slowly, "that it is you who have got me on the operating table again."

He gave her a quick glance, at once the unhappiest and the most human look that she had ever seen upon his face.

"No," said she, gently,--"if you are on the table, you have put yourself there this time."

"Well, good-by--"

"And are you coming to see me--to pay your party-call?"

"Why should I? What is the point of these conventions--these little rules--?"

"Don't you _like_ being with me? Don't you get a _great deal_ of pleasure from my society?"

"I have never asked myself such a question."

He was gazing at her for a third time; and a startled look sprang suddenly into his eyes. It was plain that he was asking himself such a question now. A curious change pa.s.sed over his face; a kind of dawning consciousness which, it was obvious, embarra.s.sed him to the point of torture, while he resolutely declined to flinch at it.

"Yes--I get pleasure from your society."

The admission turned him rather white, but he saved himself by instantly flinging at her: "However, _I am no hedonist_."

Sharlee retired to look up hedonist in the dictionary.

Later that evening, Mrs. Weyland and her daughter being together upstairs, the former said:--

"Sharlee, who is this Mr. Queed that you paid so much attention to on the porch this evening?"

"Why, don't you know, mother? He is the a.s.sistant editor of the _Post_, and is going to be editor just the minute Mr. West retires. For you see, mother, everybody says that he writes the most wonderful articles, although I a.s.sure you, a year ago--"

"Yes, but who is he? Where does he come from? Who are his people?"

"Oh, I see. That is what you mean. Well, he comes from New York, where he led the most interesting literary sort of life, studying all the time, except when he was doing articles for the great reviews, or helping a lady up there to write a thesaurus. You see, he was fitting himself to compose a great work--"

"Who are his people?"