Tommies

“ She acts as interpreter and sometimes as intercessor, for the Tommies are impatient of the hospital discipline and cause the authorities frequent anxiety, helps the Sisters out in nursing them and, best of all, makes them tea at four o’clock or thereabouts, accompanying it with bread and butter sandwiches. Frankly, the Tommies think that they are little short of starved on the French Hospital rations, and the tea helps. When they can they sneak over to the American Hospital and beg a meal there, but such excursions are frowned upon by those in authority. ”

“ London's costume drama was at its height; uniformed men and girls paraded in their thousands. There were loose-limbed Colonials, slouchily-smart British Tommies, amazingly serious Americans; bus-girls, land-girls, girls on motor-cycles, and girls driving ambulances; graceful French officers, swarthy Italians, impassive Japanese, and ruddy-faced British sailors seeking a day's diversion from the sentry-go of the sea. ”

“ The philosophy of the British Tommies, and the Canadians and the Australians on the Somme was a remarkable reflection of their fine courage through all that hell. They go about their work, paying no attention to the flying death about them.
“If Fritz has a shell with your name and number on it,” said a British Tommy to me one day, “you’re going to get it whether you’re in the front line or seven miles back. If he hasn’t, you’re all right.” ”

“ Shouts, yells and laughter, songs, French and English, and with the marching Tommies held not at all in check for their countless antics by their officers. For the officers, every one, had mighty good reason to be proud of their Tommies. Officers were constantly235 giving permission with a smiling nod to their soldiers to take advantage of invitations from the motor vehicles to the men on foot to “Get aboard, you bloomin’ hiker!” And the officers themselves were being picked up by comrades. ”

“ Tommy says his stripes are issued out with the rations, and he ought to know.
"No. 9." A pill the doctor gives you if you are suffering with corns or barber's itch or any disease at all. If none are in stock, he gives you a No. 6 and No. 3, or a No. 5 and No. 4, anything to make nine.
Nosecap. That part of a shell which unscrews and contains the device and scale for setting the time fuse. Some Tommies are ardent souvenir hunters. As soon as a shell bursts in the ground you will see them out with picks and shovels digging in the shell hole for the nose cap. ”

“ Yet I'll swear on my life that even that poor unlucky young man whose name is proscribed in this morning's news-letter would never be a penny the worse for revealing himself to such a rough fellow as me. As for Tommie, I will answer for Tommie too. It is true that Tommie hath weaknesses, but they are on the surface mostly. If he can never forget that Nature had a hand in the fashioning of Sir T. Wheatley, Knight, and Justice of the Peace, and is in a sense a self-made man therefore, he nevertheless hath a very good heart. ”

“ Judge Tyler handed him the photograph.
"That is your father and your mother," he said. "Tommie," he said, "if ever you meet your father, you tell him that an old man was made happy by his sin."
Tommie looked at the photograph during an interval that was neither short nor long. Then, with a little gulp, he knelt by the judge and threw his arms about him.
"Tommie, sometime I will have to go and leave you. You're down in my will for everything I've got. It isn't much, but you need never want for most things. I'll hate to go and leave you, Tommie. What are you going to do with your life—boy?" ”

“ Tommie had never used such self-control in all his nine lives, but he sat tight and though his whiskers showed his agitation he never budged.
The tanner was mad clear through, and he cried out, "He's a wizard; he ought to be killed" because some people can't see others controlling themselves without thinking there's something wrong with them. Then he began to make snowballs and to pelt poor Tommie. Now Tommie, as has been said, was a good dodger, but nevertheless when it rains snowballs it's hard not to get hit. ”

“ Then what happened was that poor Mother Huldah dozed off to sleep and when she awoke there was Tommie staring into the fire, his green eyes like two lanterns and his whiskers standing out very stiff and knowing, and at Mother Huldah's' feet was a wicker basket from which issued a most appetizing odor. "Why, Thomas" (she always called him Thomas in solemn moments) , "what's this?"
"Your dinner," said Tommie, and yawned like a gentleman who lights a cigarette and says, "O hang it all! what a beastly bore life is." ”

“ Mother Huldah always said that Tommie heard not with his ears but with his whiskers, and perhaps it was true.
Tommie himself was making his own plans as he went along. "If I tell these villagers outright that Mother Huldah is in need, each person will think, 'O well, Neighbor Jude, or Gossip Dorcas has more to spare than I. Someone else will take care of the poor old lady, I am sure.' And it will end in her getting nothing at all. I will not talk about her, but to each person I will talk about himself, for that is the way to get people interested." ”

“ Do strive to be natural, Tommie; if you would but be content to be natural I would suffer you gladly, for at bottom you are as good a fellow as I know. But when you get on these magisterial airs of yours a common mortal cannot touch you with a six-foot pole."
"That is all very well, Harry," says Sir Thomas, "but you forget my responsibilities."
"There you go again," says Fielding. "Be damned to your responsibilities. Come and drink a glass of good claret with us and forget yourself, your office, your dignity, your wig, your knighthood, and your laced coat for a brief five minutes. ”

“ Then came an evening when Tommie called Weslie into consultation, and they sat long over the candle-nut. Akanesi, squatting in the dark shadows, listened and watched, for that is all women are expected to do in Samoa.
"You wonder what I have been doing," said Tommie, in glib Polynesian. "The time has come for me to tell you. I have been making myself fit to fight for my country. Have I succeeded?" He thumped his hollow chest with his fist, and Weslie nodded approvingly. "England is at war, and I am English." Again the chest was thumped and the head nodded. "England must win." ”

“ And be clean. I"—the judge spoke almost bashfully—"am an old man, but I have come through as innocent as the day I was born. I am proud of you, Tommie; but I'm prouder of that. Go about the world, and the sea—friendly and honest—and some day, because you are a son of old earth, you will find the port where you would be, and there heave your pyramid. Make the world a little better for your presence in it. That's what I want you to do." The old gentleman smiled cunningly. "Tommie," he said, "I've been reading your favorite books behind your back, so as not to be behindhand. ”

“ Tommie nodded. Already she was leaving the building with him.
“You go by the cut, and if you see Hugh McClintock tell him what you’ve told me and that he’s to stay in town, she explained.
“Yes’m,” Tommie said. “I’ll ’member.”
“Don’t tell Mr. Dodson anything except that I want him just as soon as he can get to me.”
“No’m, I won’t.” His heart beat fast with excitement, but he crushed back the fear that mounted in him.
They separated. Tommie hurried along through the cut and Vicky climbed the hill to the summit. She knew that the man lying in the junipers could see her. ”

“ There are many like him south of the Line, men who have suddenly appeared on the beaches and as suddenly vanished, to live in seclusive idleness as the pet, the mascot of some native tribe,. defying the curse of Adam. Life without work, without responsibility, almost without thought—these are their maxims, and Tommie had followed them to such purpose that at fifty he was practically helpless. ”

“ And a hanging you shall get if there is any law left in the country. I will commit you at once, so help me I will! Fetch me pen and ink somebody, and I'll fill in the mittimus. I hope you are mightily ashamed of yourselves, you wicked, blackamoor villains."
"Can you not see that they are, good Tommie?" says the man with whom he was playing at cards. "They are as ashamed as the devil was when he singed the hairs on his tail through overheating his parlour." ”

“ Tommie assured him. “One thing Tomingans are good at is keeping their mouths shut. Maluleme and Vesta will spill everything they know, and brag about it, sooner or later,” the Vegian did not relish translating this passage, but she did so, and accurately, nevertheless, “but that won’t do any harm. It’s you that’s in the driver’s seat. You could’ve nailed us all to the cross if you liked, and I for one didn’t expect to get off easy. Thanks. I’ll remember this. So will everybody else who knows. You’re washing me out, of course?” ”

“ The real Tomus asserted himself manfully, however, by using the exactly opposite leg to that ordered by Fraulein. I liked this spirit of independence, and determined to make friends with him so soon as that dance should be over. I took the liberty of introducing myself; he made no remark but took me by the hand and led me out on to the landing, and there he found two chairs in the orthodox position. Into one of these he wriggled himself by a backward and upward movement, and I sat in the other. How absurdly easy it is for a grown-up to sit down! I waited for Thomas to make a remark ”

“ His friend nearly choked himself with laughter long before the justice had come through this solemn homily. Indeed he could not recover his breath until he had poured himself out another glass of wine, and had refilled mine.
"You will kill me of laughing, Tommie, one of these days," says he. "If it were not that your claret is as good as any for thirty miles round London, I would never come near you. How a man can keep such a good table and yet such a poor understanding is a thing I have never fathomed. But I protest you will certainly kill me if you do not amend your mind a little." ”

“ TOMMIE RYAN'S HORSE
Tommie Ryan and his wife (Mary Richfield) live in a very charming house at Sayville, Long Island. The Ryan horse lived in the barn. Although, if Mrs. Tommie had had her way, he would have lived in the parlor. For "Abner" was the pride of her heart.
Abner had been in the family so long he had become a habit. He had grown so old that Tommie had to go out at night and fold him up and put him to bed; then in the morning he would have to go out and pry him up on to his feet again. ”

“ Even before he had seen Thrums, except with his mother's eye, Tommy knew that the wise begin the Muckley by measuring its extent. That the square and adjoining wynds would be crammed was a law of nature, but boyhood drew imaginary lines across the Roods, the west town end, the east town end, and the brae, and if the stands did not reach these there had been retrogression. Tommy found all well in two quarters, got a nasty shock on the brae, but medicine for it in the Roods; on the whole, yelled a hundred children, by way of greeting to each other, a better Muckley than ever. ”

“ Tommie's father was sitting back in the big chair with a half smile on his face. "So a phony makes Tommie split, eh." He chuckled. "Tommie's right. Not that I would blame any man for not particularly caring for children. That's a man's privilege. But I didn't like that ugly gleam in Franklin's eyes when he thought Tommie was going to interfere." ”

“ Tommie always hated to find himself alone. Where were Weslie, and Akanesi, and—and—— But it was really too much trouble to recall the name of each member of the household that shared the honour of supporting him. ”

“ Mr. Franklin came promptly at eight, and they all went into the front room as soon as mother threw the dishes down the chute. Then they had coffee, and Tommie began to worry. Nobody said anything about business for a long time.
Tommie went and got his sun-energy set and settled himself under the arm of his dad's chair. Then he looked up expectantly for a pat on the head, but instead of that his father was staring at him. Tommie remembered how the hydrogen nuclei had misbehaved, so he got to his feet again and went for his chlorophyl kit. ”

“ The very man for the job. Buttonholing him with his hook, Cap'en Tommy opened his little plot. Temple aghast at first. Never known such a thing done, and the like. Tommy jawed away, twisting Temple round the tip of his hook like a marlingspike on a flying jibboom. Convinced him that public duty called for sacrifice of private prejudices. Having squared Temple, Tommy got men near him to walk out before House was counted, so as to reduce chances of quorum.
Bell rang; Members rushed in; Ministers huddled on Treasury Bench like flock of frightened sheep. ”

“ It was no easy matter to induce her to think and to feel that the curly-headed boy, who stood by her side, and even leaned on her lap; who was loved by little Tommy, and who loved little Tommy in turn; sustained to her only the relation of a chattel. I was more than that, and she felt me to be more than that. ”

“ What is genius? It is the power to be a boy again at will. When I think of him flinging off the years and whistling childhood back, not to himself only, but to all who heard, distributing it among them gaily, imperiously calling on them to dance, dance, for they are boys and girls again until they stop—when to recall him in those wild moods is to myself to grasp for a moment at the dear dead days that were so much the best, I cannot wonder that Grizel loved him. I am his slave myself; I see that all that was wrong with Tommy was that he could not always be a boy. ”