Nell Speed

“ He is always so sane in his political opinions. I get more and more uneasy about them, Bobby and Mamma. Such terrible tales of the Germans are coming to us. I don’t believe them, at least not all of them. How could a kindly, rather bovine race suddenly turn into raging tigers? Why should any one want to do anything to Bobby? I comfort myself with that thought and then I remember how hot-headed and impulsive he is, inherited directly from me, his daughter, and I begin to tremble.
Jo and I are settling up our affairs here. ”

“ Poor Sukey had no easy job to keep Aunt Mary satisfied. The old woman, having been a most energetic and tireless person in her day, could not understand that the whole world of darkeys could not be as she had been. Sukey’s son Buck, the apple of her mild eye, was the bane of Aunt Mary’s existence. She never missed a chance to make her younger half-sister miserable on his account. Indeed, Sukey, mild as she was, would not have stayed with Aunt Mary except for the fact that Aunt Mary had insured her life for her with the understanding that she was to minister to her to the end. ”

“ Why, my dear, it is not the duty of all American girls to stay on this side and nurse any more than it is the duty of all American men to stay here and fight. Only those must do it who are called, as it were, by the spirit. You must marry my young cousin and go back to United States, and there your duty will begin, not only to make him the brave, fine wife that I know it is in you to make, but also to remember suffering France and Belgium. There is much work waiting for you. ”

“ It is so wonderful to have a home to go to. Now isn’t that a silly line of talk for Judy Kean to be getting off, I, who have always declared that a Gypsy van was my idea of bliss? I never have had a home and I never [8] have wanted one until lately. I fancy that winter in Paris with your mother in the Rue Brea was my undoing. Of course, if Bobby had been anything but a civil engineer and Mamma had been anything but so much married to Bobby that she had to trot around with him from one end of the earth to the other, why then, I might have had a home. ”

“ She spent more money on films than on food, in spite of her healthy hunger.
On that morning in September as she cleared away the scraps from her meager breakfast, her eyes swimming from lonesomeness, appetite unappeased and a kind of nameless longing, she almost determined to throw herself on the mercy of the American Legation for funds to return to New York. The Americans had cleared out of Paris until there were very few left. Judy would occasionally see the familiar face of some art student she had known in the class, but those familiar faces grew less and less frequent. ”

“ As Judy lay on the soft, clean couch, sniffing the mingled smells of shop and kitchen and fresh sheets, she thanked her stars that she was not alone in the Bents’ studio, wondering what she was to do about breakfast and a little nervous at every sound heard during the night.
Even the bravest feels a little squeamish when absolutely alone through the long night. ”

“ The streets were very quiet and misty. Paris never gets up very early, and as the cold weather comes, she lies abed later and later. The Gardens of the Luxembourg were showing signs of frost, or was it heavy dew? The leaves had begun to drop and some of them had turned.
There was a delightful nip in the air and as Judy and the old man trudged along, the girl felt really happy, happier than she had for many a day. “It must be having a home that is doing it,” she thought. “Maybe I am a domestic person, after all.
“Père Tricot, don’t you love your home?” ”

“ Splash! they dropped right on the tarts.
“Never mind the tarts!” exclaimed the kindly grenadier. “Those must go to Jean’s regiment. They will understand.”
“I could not help it,” sobbed poor Judy. “I was thinking how proud Kent would be of me when he knew I could make tarts and wondering how many he could eat, when all of a sudden it came to me that he never would know—and—and—Oh, Mother Tricot!” and she buried her face on the bosom of the good old woman, who patted her with one hand and held her close while she adroitly whisked a pan of tarts from the oven with the other. ”

“ Don’t you want me to put Mildred down? She has been asleep for half an hour,” and the young husband and father stood for a moment and looked down on his treasures with what Judy Kean always called his faithful-collie-dog eyes.
“I know I oughtn’t to hold her while she is asleep, but she seems so wonderful I can’t bear to let her go. I think she is growing more like you, Edwin.”
“Like me! Nonsense! That would be a sad thing to have wished on the poor innocent when there are so many handsome folks in the Carmichael and Brown family from whom she could inherit real beauty.” ”

“ Ah, my dear Mam’selle, one who is nothing does not have young men take trips across the ocean for her. But look at the spinach wilting in the sun! We must hasten to get the cooking done.”
Poor Judy! All zest had gone out of the morning for her. She put her package of mail in the cart, not at all caring if it got at the fishy end, and wearily began to push. Père Tricot, well knowing that work was a panacea for sorrow, let her take her share of the burden, and together the old peasant in his stiff blue blouse and the sad young American girl trundled the provisions down the boulevard. ”

“ I must not be allowed to write my opinion of their ruler to my own daughter, but these Prussians who go to United States and get all they can from our country, feel at perfect liberty to publish newspapers vilifying our President and to burst into print at any moment about our men who are high in authority.
Berlin is wild with enthusiasm and joy over her victories. Every Belgian village that is razed to the ground makes them think it is cause for a torch-light procession. I can’t understand them. They can hardly be the same kindly folk we have so often stayed among. ”

“ Judy gasped.
“Yes, Miss Judy Kean, I am to be married and so are you. What’s more, it is to be just as soon as the French law will tie the knot.”
“Well, of all——”
“Yes, of all the slippery parties, I know you are the slipperiest and I have no idea of letting you get away. Am I right, Jim?”
Jim was too busy with a tart to be coherent. He nodded his head, however, and when Kent put the same question to Mère Tricot in French, she upheld him.
“It would be much more convenable if you were married. It is very easy to get married in war time. ”

“ She had on a very becoming blue linen house dress that she had donned as not only suitable for possible callers but also not too pure or good in which to cook her husband’s food. The baby had delighted the admiring audience, before the arrival of Miss Fern, by clutching a handful of her mother’s pretty hair and having to have her little pink fingers opened one by one to disengage them. No doubt it was a highly intelligent and charming performance, but it had played sad havoc with Molly’s hair. ”

“ Old Mère Tricot had her opinions and expressed them, and they listened with respect when she pooh-poohed and bah-bahed the notion that the Nations had gone to war from altruistic motives.
“Belgium might as well die fighting as die not [299] fighting. The Germans had her any way she jumped. France had to fight, too, fight or be enslaved. As for Great Britain—she couldn’t well stay out of it! When the Germans got Antwerp, why, where was England? Let us fight, I say—fight to a finish; but let’s be honest about it and each country say she is fighting for herself.” ”

“ Jim was quite glib with his book agent tale. He got off a line of talk about the albums that almost convulsed Kent.
“Why were you going to Paris to sell such things? Would a country at war be a good field for such an industry?”
“But the country will not be at war long. We expect the Germans to have conquered in a short time, and then they will want many albums for the snapshots they have taken during the campaign. I have been sent as an especial favor by my company, who wish to honor me. I hate to think of all my beautiful books being sunk in the Hirondelle.” ”

“ They left the garden and made for the shop where Jo and Polly Perkins had bought their ready cooked provisions.
“These people make some little pies that are mighty good, too. We might get half a dozen or so of them as a top off,” suggested Kent.
“Fine! I’ve got a mouth for pie, all right.”
Judy had gone to the kitchen for a moment to bring to the fore the smoked tongue that Père Tricot had been slicing in those paper-thin slices that he alone knew how to accomplish. She bore aloft a great platter of the viand, the even slices [262] arranged like a wreath of autumn leaves. ”

“ When Miss Fern made her adieux, Molly had flown so quickly to the kitchen that she had not seen her husband crossing the campus. Alice Fern had seen him, however, and her greeting of him was so warm and friendly, her smile so charming and her manner so cordial that she hardly seemed the same person who had just left poor Molly stuttering and stammering apologies over her Irishman’s curtains.
“Look at the pill!” exclaimed Jo. “She is about to eat up Epiménides Antinous Green.” That was the name Professor Green was known by at Wellington. ”

“ The grenadier was equally pleased to have them and, indeed, Jim Castleman was so hungry by that time that he would have eaten cold spinach with his fingers.
How that old couple plied the young Americans [265] with their delightful food and how they listened to their tale of shipwreck and rescue! When Kent told of their fooling the Prussians with Tutno, the childish language they had known in their youth, the Tricots laughed with such glee that a gendarme put his head in the door to see what it was all about. ”

“ She was no more homeless than she had always been, but now she wanted a home and she wanted it to be Kent’s home, too. Fool! fool that she had been! Why hadn’t she gone home like all the sensible Americans when war was declared? The Browns [128] would never forgive her and she would never forgive herself. She read again Mrs. Brown’s letter. How good she was to have been willing to have Kent turn right around and go back to Paris for that worthless Julia Kean. And now he was gone, and it was all her fault! Ah, me! Well, life must be lived, if all the color had gone out of it. ”

“ That matron was saying to herself: “How stupid men are!” She had recognized Jo from the beginning. Kent had known in some far off corner of his brain that Mrs. Polly Perkins was doing something or other about the war, but his mind had been so taken up with his own affairs and Judy’s possible danger that that knowledge had stayed in the corner of his brain while the more important matter of getting married was uppermost. ”

“ I’d like to dress up like Jo Bill Perkins and pass as a man, and I could do it quite as well as Jo, in spite of her having practiced being a boy all her life, but I can’t help thinking what Bobby has always said to me: “Just remember you are a lady and you can’t go far wrong.” Somehow, I am afraid if I cut off my hair and discarded skirts, I might forget I am a lady. It is an awful nuisance being one, anyhow. ”

“ How they keep as healthy as they do is a wonder to those brought up on fresh air. Judy had feared that her sleeping would have to be done in the great bed with Marie and the baby and welcomed the proposition of the couch in the living room with joy. There was a smell of delicatessen wares but it was not unpleasing to one who had been economizing in food for so many days.
“I’d rather smell spinach than American Beauties,” she said to herself, “and potato salad beats potpourri.” ”

“ Brown dropped the baby in her basket and flew across the grass to greet the long-absent Kent.
“I couldn’t wait for Paul but had to get old Dr. John to bring me out. Mumsy, how plump and pink you are. I declare you look almost as young as the new baby,” said Kent after the first raptures of greeting were over. “And Molly, you look great! And ’Fessor Green, I declare you are getting fat. I bet you have gained at least three-quarters of a pound since you got married. Positively obese!” ”

“ The lazy days on deck, with their chairs drawn as close together as chairs could be, their hands clasped under the steamer rug, seemed like a beautiful dream, only a dream that was going to last for a lifetime, not the lazy days on deck but the being together and never talking out. Being lazy was not the idea of eternal bliss common to either of these young persons. ”

“ Cousin Sally’s admonition to work for the Allies was not forgotten, either. Judy was planning a busy winter for herself in New York just as soon as she and Kent could get themselves settled in an apartment.
“It must be very inexpensive, too, Kent. We must save money.”
Kent couldn’t help laughing at Judy’s solemn face. What would Judy’s friends say at her becoming penurious? Judy, the spendthrift!
“You see, I’ve always cost poor Bobby a lot of money; not that he has ever complained, but I don’t mean to be a burden to you, Kent.” ”

“ Things are moving fast! The artists and near artists at Madame Gaston’s Inn are piling out, making for Paris, some to sail for United States and others to try to get into England. Jo and I had determined to sit tight in our little house with its lovely walled garden that seems a kind of protection to us—not that we are scared, bless you no! We just felt we might as well be here as anywhere else.
This morning Jo came to breakfast looking kind of different and yet kind of familiar—she had cut off her hair! ”

“ Kean will make when they finally draw the cork,” laughed Mrs. Brown; but when Molly read the whole of Judy’s letter to her, the laughter left her countenance and she looked very solemn and disturbed.
“Poor Kent!” she sighed.
“I wonder what he will do,” from Molly.
“Do? Why, he will do what the men of his blood should do!” Mrs. Brown held her head very high and her delicate nostrils quivered in the way her family knew meant either anger or high resolve. “He will go to France and either stay and protect Judy or bring her back to his mother.” ”