Harold MacGrath

“ From the bunkers to the furnaces and back to the bunkers, he panted and sweated, bringing up in his mind pictures which served (when his grinding teeth failed him) to lock his knees: meadows powdered with clover, a bit of bunting in the breeze, and the smiling face of a lovely girl.
They were crowding on all the steam the boilers would hold, for there were rumors of raiders and submarines in the Pacific; and Captain Chadwick purposed to make Honolulu on full speed
The volcanic flashes from the furnaces gave vivid pictures of naked and half-naked men. ”

“ We write ourselves fairy stories and live through them in fancy. Collingwood made believe he had fallen in love with Miss MacKenzie. This was a habit. He was always building fairy stories around the pretty women he saw—at a distance. He was like the little child before the candy-shop window, saying, “I choose that!” He built all sorts of fantastic adventures in which he and Miss MacKenzie were comrades.
It was at Honolulu that he saw the mother and daughter again, coming up the gang-plank after a day's jaunt in town. The girl nodded brightly, and said something in an undertone to her mother. ”

“ Yellow men and brown men and white men swarmed hither and thither and yon. The roar of the furnaces and ventilators, the never-ending slither of the coal, the shouts, the dust, the thud-thud of the engines, the greasy sheet-iron flooring, the insupportable heat—through it all Collingwood plodded on He was lifting himself by his boot-straps. There was one ceaseless thought: to make his body straight and strong, and then to give it to his country. ”

“ If I had been a thief I shouldn't have come back, for I was an unhappy youth. But I came back. Coldly and without understanding, you told me to clear out. You had no son. You threatened me with prison if I remained in New York. You had no sen. Because I had your blood in me, I did not beg. I cleared out.”
The son took off his hat and tossed it on a chair. The face under his burning gaze remained unchanged.
“You never understood me. You never made the least effort to. After grandmother died I was the lonesomest little boy in all the world. ”

“ Collingwood turned his hand over this way and that, speculatively. “It is not very clean.”
The girl laughed happily. The tears in her eyes twinkled for a moment, trembled and went back. “I shall be very proud to shake your hand.” With her small white hand in his grimy, calloused one, she added: “One's country; to love it and to die for it if need be!” ”

“ Think of the job that is in front of you! Just one more: something for old time's sake. Aren't you unhappy? Who cares, anyhow?”
Collingwood, desperately pressed, went over to the window. The sky was now filled with sparkling stars. Stars and clover blossoms, clean things. He looked up at the stars, then down at the clover which he held in his hand. ”

“ For four days the idea obsessed him that he was living in a nightmare; but after the eighth watch the food began to take hold and build. He had spoken truly that he was naturally strong; and he also had the resilience of youth, young manhood. But for all that it was will alone that had carried him into the fifth day.
He had learned to listen for the concerted falling of the slice-bars—the end of the watch. He tipped his barrow and followed the men to the hose. The smack of the stream against the skin was like no tonic he had ever known—cold sea-water. ”

“ When a man can weep at the sight of his flag, there's hope. I wept. I knew then what I was going to do. I've gone through seven hells to get into this uniform. I willed it. I took a broken body and made it strong and straight. I took a blight that I had inherited from your side of the family and throttled it. I'm a man now, by God, bone and muscle, heart and mind!” Swiftly the fire left his eyes, the tenseness his body. He stretched out his hand impulsively. ”

“ He could not analyze this motiveless impulse any more than he could explain the reason for carrying around the contents of that trunk. Perhaps it was all due to a vague remembrance of a bit of writing he had once seen in a hotel Bible. “No man goes to hell directly. There are little obstacles in the path that serve to give him pause, a chance to turn about and fight back. So long as a man clings to some trifling material relic of his past, he is not wholly lost.”
Collingwood knelt, threw back the lid and stared down at the contents of the trunk. ”

“ Quite calmly he put the clover into an inner pocket and pinned the flag to the lapel of his coat. He would make his body sound and give it to his country. He put on his hat, blew out the candle, and went out into the street. Whispering and urging and cajoling, The Thing fought the Idea all the way to the tables in the rear of the Hongkong Hotel.
Collingwood sat down at a table. He could feel the sweat across his shoulders. A frowsy waiter whose face was unfamiliar shuffled over. Waiters in Charlie's were migratory birds. ”

“ Come in Friday.”
“You don't understand me,” said Collingwood. “I don't want a free ride. I want work, hard work, something to give me back my strength. As I stand now, there isn't a recruiting station in the world that would accept me.”
“On that basis I'll give you all the help I can.”
“Captain Chadwick!” announced the clerk, breathlessly.
“Show him in.”
The sea captain was red, vigorous and breezy. “War!” he boomed. “By the Lord Harry, I'm a happy man! I've got a piece of real bunting to break out on the breeze. Eh, man? A flag that nobody'll ever sneer at again. ”

“ I want the feeling that I'm giving myself. It's my chance. I've just come out of the hospital, and I'm physically weak. I want work that'll build me up. I'm naturally strong. I'm only thirty-two. Perhaps it is the only chance I shall ever have again. Will you help me?”
The consul tapped his desk with his pen.
“What brought you here, anyhow?”
Collingwood looked down at his canvas shoes. Presently he met the consul's searching eye. “Morally I am a thief, but not legally. I am not in any way amenable to civil laws. ”

“ Th' poor ol' goat thinks we can't fight! Th' ol' flag, huh? Look at her! Mine, by God! I've been a booze-fighter, a waster, I ain't lived as clean as I might've; but when I was under her I never did nothin' that wasn't white an' square. So I'm goin' back.”
Collingwood raised his head. He could see that the man was half-seas over.
“You talk like a white man; act like one.” ”

“ Jeanie MacKenzie—and clover blossoms!
With a jerk of his head he dismissed the dream, and went off in search of the nearest recruiting station.
“Sorry,” said the examining surgeon, “but there's a spot on one of your lungs.”
“Any hope?”
“Barrels of it! Go down to Los Angeles and get a job on a farm. You'll come around all right. This war isn't going to be over to-morrow. Good luck!”
But Collingwood did not go to Los Angeles; he went east. He stole rides on freight, worked in the alfalfa fields, washed dishes in a cheap restaurant, hoed potatoes, and eventually landed in Omaha. ”

“ A little kindness, a smiling kindness, when in all his life he most needed it. Even then he knew that he was never going to forget this girl.
At length, blinking desperately, he walked away, up Water Street, across town, into a quarter he had once investigated with a tourist's curiosity. It was growing dark when he stopped before a sign which informed passers-by that Tom Wu was ready to make clothes at half the price of his Water Street competitors. The man who had wrested from the muck of circumstance that day a high resolve opened the door and entered. ”

“ The sleeping echoes, for ages undisturbed in that lonely room, awoke, surprised and resentful, for they flung back the challenge hollowly. “I will!” said Collingwood again, bringing his fist down upon the trunk fiercely. Then he bowed his head on his arms and sobbed: “I will, I will, I will!”
By and by he got upon his feet, heavily. He drew the chair up to the table and contemplated the flag-pin and the clover. America! He was going to take this half-wrecked body and make it straight and strong again, then he was going to give it.
“All right, old girl,” he whispered; “I'm coming. ”

“ He saw human beings in the glare; they ceased to be shapes out of hell. The thud-thud of the engines now became friendly; it talked; it said, “Going home! Going home!”
After this, he was one of the first to gain the deck. He snoozed on the hatch or lolled against the rail, brooding. He had in his pocket a clipping from the newspaper he had picked up out of the gutter. ”

“ The girl who had given him the clover blossoms!
“Poor black sheep!” said the girl. “Mr. Henderson, I shall always remember your pity. My mother and I—we know all about black sheep. And that is why we step out of our way to be kind to one when we meet him. God send them all home!”
AFTER that, Collingwood would come up at four and Miss MacKenzie would manoeuver to get around to the cross-rail a that hour. ”

“ Collingwood answered to this name in Yokohama. He stepped into the private office. The consul was writing. When he had finished his letter and signed it, he looked up.
“So it's you, Mr. Randolph?” he said ironically, “I suppose you've been all the way to America and back since I last saw you.”
“I spent that money on a carouse,” replied Collingwood simply. “I wound up in Singapore.”
“You're frank about it, anyhow. Well, I can do nothing more for you. The ring you left as security isn't worth a hundred dollars. ”

“ The lodger laid the newspaper, the flag-pin and the clover blossoms on the table, then went over to the trunk. There was every indication that the owner had sought to lose his identity. And yet there was a curious inconsistency. Below one of the handles was a little brass plate. While the lettering on this had been scraped by a penknife, a close scrutiny revealed the name and address: Arthur Collingwood, New York.
He had started out grimly and resolutely to complete the job, but something had held him back. Hope? Hope for what? ”

“ I'll pay you ten yen on account, if you'll let me have my trunk and room back. I'll square up in a few days. I can always get work as a clerk.”
The Chinaman seemed to be debating. “All light. Lemme see cash.”
The visitor laid down ten yen, which was half his store. “Thank you, Tom. You're a white man. I knew I could come to you.”
The Chinaman picked up his shears, and the prodigal lodger passed through the side door into the hallway and mounted the stairs to the third floor. The air was thick with the odor of joss-sticks. ”

“ Once, thousands of years ago, he had known young women like yonder one.
That the two were mother and daughter was made evident a moment later. The elder stepped down from her rickshaw and walked back. ”