________________________________________________
_ Camp habits persisted. On his first morning at home Claude came
downstairs before even Mahailey was stirring, and went out to
have a look at the stock. The red sun came up just as he was
going down the hill toward the cattle corral, and he had the
pleasant feeling of being at home, on his father's land. Why was
it so gratifying to be able to say "our hill," and "our creek
down yonder"? to feel the crunch of this particular dried mud
under his boots?
When he went into the barn to see the horses, the first creatures
to meet his eye were the two big mules that had run away with
him, standing in the stalls next the door. It flashed upon Claude
that these muscular quadrupeds were the actual authors of his
fate. If they had not bolted with him and thrown him into the
wire fence that morning, Enid would not have felt sorry for him
and come to see him every day, and his life might have turned out
differently. Perhaps if older people were a little more honest,
and a boy were not taught to idealize in women the very qualities
which can make him utterly unhappy--But there, he had got away
from those regrets. But wasn't it just like him to be dragged
into matrimony by a pair of mules!
He laughed as he looked at them. "You old devils, you're strong
enough to play such tricks on green fellows for years to come.
You're chock full of meanness!"
One of the animals wagged an ear and cleared his throat
threateningly. Mules are capable of strong affections, but they
hate snobs, are the enemies of caste, and this pair had always
seemed to detect in Claude what his father used to call his
"false pride." When he was a young lad they had been a source of
humiliation to him, braying and balking in public places, trying
to show off at the lumber yard or in front of the post office.
At the end manger Claude found old Molly, the grey mare with the
stiff leg, who had grown a second hoof on her off forefoot, an
achievement not many horses could boast of. He was sure she
recognized him; she nosed his hand and arm and turned back her
upper lip, showing her worn, yellow teeth.
"Mustn't do that, Molly," he said as he stroked her. "A dog can
laugh, but it makes a horse look foolish. Seems to me Dan might
curry you about once a week!" He took a comb from its niche
behind a joist and gave her old coat a rubbing. Her white hair
was flecked all over with little rust-coloured dashes, like India
ink put on with a fine brush, and her mane and tail had turned a
greenish yellow. She must be eighteen years old, Claude reckoned,
as he polished off her round, heavy haunches. He and Ralph used
to ride her over to the Yoeders' when they were barefoot
youngsters, guiding her with a rope halter, and kicking at the
leggy colt that was always running alongside.
When he entered the kitchen and asked Mahailey for warm water to
wash his hands, she sniffed him disapprovingly.
"Why, Mr. Claude, you've been curryin' that old mare, and you've
got white hairs all over your soldier-clothes. You're jist
covered!"
If his uniform stirred feeling in people of sober judgment, over
Mahailey it cast a spell. She was so dazzled by it that all the
time Claude was at home she never once managed to examine it in
detail. Before she got past his puttees, her powers of
observation were befogged by excitement, and her wits began to
jump about like monkeys in a cage. She had expected his uniform
to be blue, like those she remembered, and when he walked into
the kitchen last night she scarcely knew what to make of him.
After Mrs. Wheeler explained to her that American soldiers didn't
wear blue now, Mahailey repeated to herself that these brown
clothes didn't show the dust, and that Claude would never look
like the bedraggled men who used to stop to drink at her mother's
spring.
"Them leather leggins is to keep the briars from scratchin' you,
ain't they? I 'spect there's an awful lot of briars over there,
like them long blackberry vines in the fields in Virginia. Your
madder says the soldiers git lice now, like they done in our war.
You jist carry a little bottle of coal-oil in your pocket an' rub
it on your head at night. It keeps the nits from hatchin'."
Over the flour barrel in the corner Mahailey had tacked a Red
Cross poster; a charcoal drawing of an old woman poking with a
stick in a pile of plaster and twisted timbers that had once been
her home. Claude went over to look at it while he dried his
hands.
"Where did you get your picture?"
"She's over there where you're goin', Mr. Claude. There she is,
huntin' for somethin' to cook with; no stove nor no dishes nor
nothin'--everything all broke up. I reckon she'll be mighty glad
to see you comin'."
Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Mahailey whispered
hastily, "Don't forgit about the coal-oil, and don't you be lousy
if you can help it, honey." She considered lice in the same class
with smutty jokes,--things to be whispered about.
After breakfast Mr. Wheeler took Claude out to the fields, where
Ralph was directing the harvesters. They watched the binder for a
while, then went over to look at the haystacks and alfalfa, and
walked along the edge of the cornfield, where they examined the
young ears. Mr. Wheeler explained and exhibited the farm to
Claude as if he were a stranger; the boy had a curious feeling of
being now formally introduced to these acres on which he had
worked every summer since he was big enough to carry water to the
harvesters. His father told him how much land they owned, and how
much it was worth, and that it was unencumbered except for a
trifling mortgage he had given on one quarter when he took over
the Colorado ranch.
"When you come back," he said, "you and Ralph won't have to hunt
around to get into business. You'll both be well fixed. Now you'd
better go home by old man Dawson's and drop in to see Susie.
Everybody about here was astonished when Leonard went." He walked
with Claude to the corner where the Dawson land met his own. "By
the way," he said as he turned back, "don't forget to go in to
see the Yoeders sometime. Gus is pretty sore since they had him
up in court. Ask for the old grandmother. You remember she never
learned any English. And now they've told her it's dangerous to
talk German, she don't talk at all and hides away from everybody.
If I go by early in the morning, when she's out weeding the
garden, she runs and squats down in the gooseberry bushes till
I'm out of sight."
Claude decided he would go to the Yoeders' today, and to the
Dawsons' tomorrow. He didn't like to think there might be hard
feeling toward him in a house where he had had so many good
times, and where he had often found a refuge when things were
dull at home. The Yoeder boys had a music-box long before the
days of Victrolas, and a magic lantern, and the old grandmother
made wonderful shadow-pictures on a sheet, and told stories about
them. She used to turn the map of Europe upside down on the
kitchen table and showed the children how, in this position, it
looked like a jungfrau; and recited a long German rhyme which
told how Spain was the maiden's head, the Pyrenees her lace ruff,
Germany her heart and bosom, England and Italy were two arms, and
Russia, though it looked so big, was only a hoopskirt. This rhyme
would probably be condemned as dangerous propaganda now!
As he walked on alone, Claude was thinking how this country that
had once seemed little and dull to him, now seemed large and rich
in variety. During the months in camp he had been wholly absorbed
in new work and new friendships, and now his own neighbourhood
came to him with the freshness of things that have been forgotten
for a long while,--came together before his eyes as a harmonious
whole. He was going away, and he would carry the whole
countryside in his mind, meaning more to him than it ever had
before. There was Lovely Creek, gurgling on down there, where he
and Ernest used to sit and lament that the book of History was
finished; that the world had come to avaricious old age and noble
enterprise was dead for ever. But he was going away . . . .
That afternoon Claude spent with his mother. It was the first
time she had had him to herself. Ralph wanted terribly to stay
and hear his brother talk, but understanding how his mother felt,
he went back to the wheat field. There was no detail of Claude's
life in camp so trivial that Mrs. Wheeler did not want to hear
about it. She asked about the mess, the cooks, the laundry, as
well as about his own duties. She made him describe the bayonet
drill and explain the operation of machine guns and automatic
rifles.
"I hardly see how we can bear the anxiety when our transports
begin to sail," she said thoughtfully. "If they can once get you
all over there, I am not afraid; I believe our boys are as good
as any in the world. But with submarines reported off our own
coast, I wonder how the Government can get our men across safely.
The thought of transports going down with thousands of young men
on board is something so terrible--" she put her hands quickly
over her eyes.
Claude, sitting opposite his mother, wondered what it was about
her hands that made them so different from any others he had ever
seen. He had always known they were different, but now he must
look closely and see why. They were slender, and always white,
even when the nails were stained at preserving time. Her fingers
arched back at the joints, as if they were shrinking from
contacts. They were restless, and when she talked often brushed
her hair or her dress lightly. When she was excited she sometimes
put her hand to her throat, or felt about the neck of her gown,
as if she were searching for a forgotten brooch. They were
sensitive hands, and yet they seemed to have nothing to do with
sense, to be almost like the groping fingers of a spirit.
"How do you boys feel about it?"
Claude started. "About what, Mother? Oh, the transportation! We
don't worry about that. It's the Government's job to get us
across. A soldier mustn't worry about anything except what he's
directly responsible for. If the Germans should sink a few troop
ships, it would be unfortunate, certainly, but it wouldn't cut any
figure in the long run. The British are perfecting an enormous
dirigible, built to carry passengers. If our transports are sunk,
it will only mean delay. In another year the Yankees will be
flying over. They can't stop us."
Mrs. Wheeler bent forward. "That must be boys' talk, Claude.
Surely you don't believe such a thing could be practicable?"
"Absolutely. The British are depending on their aircraft
designers to do just that, if everything else fails. Of course,
nobody knows yet how effective the submarines will be in our
case."
Mrs. Wheeler again shaded her eyes with her hand. "When I was
young, back in Vermont, I used to wish that I had lived in the
old times when the world went ahead by leaps and bounds. And now,
I feel as if my sight couldn't bear the glory that beats upon it.
It seems as if we would have to be born with new faculties, to
comprehend what is going on in the air and under the sea." _
Read next: Book Three: Sunrise on the Prairie: Chapter 12
Read previous: Book Three: Sunrise on the Prairie: Chapter 10
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