“Imagine!” Betsy cried to her mother. “He’s been back less than three years but a Federal Court judge and a big banker wrote two of his recommendations.” His managing editor had written the third.
“Even those good letters,” Joe said, “may not be enough. The camp can take only twenty-five hundred men. Lots more than that are applying. Sons of millionaires! Fellows backed by United States senators! Football stars! The competition is something fierce.”
“You’ll be accepted,” Betsy said.
It wouldn’t do any good if he wasn’t, she thought. He’d just enlist and be gone all the sooner.
Betsy did not feel very patriotic, although she tried to. Patriotism had burst out all over, faster than spring. Flags like tricolored trees rose above factories, offices, and homes. Flags like tiny flowers bloomed in buttonholes. Tib wore one when she left for Deep Valley to get ready for her wedding. Carney and Betsy wore them when they went down to Nicollet Avenue to watch the Loyalty Parade.
Sam had applied for Officers’ Training, too.
“He’s warning me,” said Carney, “that if he gets out from under my thumb he’s going to grow a mustache and wax it.”
“Joe,” said Betsy, “will probably grow a beard.”
The parade rang with martial music, as sunshine glittered on horns and trumpets, tubas, clarinets, and the jubilant sliding trombones. Drums beat and a field artillery regiment was shouting:
“Over hill, over dale,
As we hit the dusty trail,
Oh, the caissons go rolling along….”
You heard “The Star Spangled Banner” at the movies, at the theater, wherever you went. Up and down Canoe Place phonographs were spinning out “Tipperary,” “There’s a Long, Long Trail,” and “Keep the Home Fires Burning.”
“I don’t want you to keep the home fires burning here,” Joe told Betsy. “I don’t want you to be alone.”
“I’ll go back to 909,” said Betsy. “The folks are urging me to.”
“I’d want you to pay board.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Let’s get this place rented then,” he said.
“Furnished!” said Betsy firmly, and they put an advertisement into the Courier. The cottage was snapped up in no time. The renters had a little girl. She would like it, Betsy thought, that wrens were nesting in the birdhouse.
Betsy went briskly about the business of packing away dishes and silver and the most precious wedding gifts. She took down the box that held her wedding dress, and opened it, and put her face into the soft white silk. But tears came and she put the cover on again for she was sternly resolved not to cry. She added the box to the pile they would be taking to 909.
They made the last trip on a warm soft Sunday. Neighbors were uncovering flower beds, raking and burning, and birds were scouting through the budding trees. The shrubs had greened over. The bridal wreath Mr. Ray and Joe had planted would soon be in bloom. Betsy tried not to think about it.
If it takes something more than joy, and love, and happy memories to feather a nest, this one’s feathered, she thought, but she acted busy and cheerful. She did not want to weaken her courage—or Joe’s.
Not that there was much danger of weakening Joe’s. Exhilaration was mixed with his sadness at renting the house and leaving Betsy, although he worried about her and she knew it. Shifting a dozen parcels, he found her arm and squeezed it as they walked away.
They settled themselves in Betsy’s old blue and white bedroom, with their favorite books and other dear belongings—the long-legged bird, Joe’s mother’s vase, and the Goethe cup—in spite of the fact that it came from Germany and Joe would be fighting the Germans. The curtains had been freshly washed, and there was a big bouquet of daffodils. The whole house was flower-filled in welcome.
We’re awfully lucky, Betsy reminded herself as they fell into the pleasant home routine. Joe was still working at the Courier, and watching for the post card which would tell him he had been accepted at the Officers’ Training Camp.
Cocoanut cake, Mr. Ray complained, was coming out of his ears, and Anna switched to strawberry short-cake. Mrs. Ray mentioned the government’s request for meatless and wheatless days.
“Meatless and wheatless, Anna,” she emphasized.
Anna snorted. “Meatless, yes, if the President says so. But he’s eating well in the White House. Joe, poor lovey, is going off to fight the Kaiser.” (Single-handed, she implied.) “And Joe was always one for dessert.” She whisked a batch of cookies into the oven.
Mrs. Ray was almost as indulgent. She was being careful, Betsy could see, not to express unnerving sympathy, but her every word and glance was tender. Mr. Ray, like Joe, was excited about the war. He thought the United States had done right in entering. But his eyes were anxious when he looked at Betsy.
Margaret was the easiest one to be with. Shyly delighted to have her sister at home, she came to Betsy’s room or followed her about, sometimes with Louisa.
“Betsy,” said Louisa breathlessly, “tell me something important! When Joe is through at Fort Snelling, and an officer, will soldiers salute him?”
“I suppose so.”
“And will he salute back?”
“Why, yes!”
Louisa heaved an enormous sigh. “Then when Bill and Bub are officers, they’ll be saluted. I’ll certainly feel proud.”
“Are Bill and Bub going after commissions?” Betsy asked.
“They’ll be training at the U next fall.”
All the high school seniors who wanted to enlist were being given their diplomas, Margaret said, and one day she came home with a luminous face. Clay had enlisted! With all the Commencement glories right around the corner! He had come to school in his uniform, she said.
Next day he came to the Ray house, tall, gangling, and sheepish in olive drab. Margaret made lemonade for him. She brought out cookies. She walked with him proudly up and down the block and introduced him to the neighbors.
“How do you like Clay?” she asked Betsy.
“Oh, I like him!”
“I’m wearing his class pin,” said Margaret. “Nothing serious. I’m just sort of taking care of it while he’s over there fighting. He’s going to send me a silk handkerchief from Paris, and some German shells and things.”
One Friday morning when Margaret was in school, and Mrs. Ray had gone shopping and Betsy was alone in the house except for Anna who was making a rhubarb pie, the mail brought the post card Joe had been waiting for. He was to report at Fort Snelling the following Monday.
Betsy went straight to the telephone. He was excited, overjoyed, triumphant.
“I made it!” he cried. “By Gosh, I made it! I was more worried than I let you know, honey. Sam’s in; he just called me. What day do I report, do you say?”
“Monday.”
“Then I’ll tell Brad and clear out my desk. Golly, I’m relieved!” He checked his enthusiasm. “You all right, dear?”
“Oh yes, sweetheart!”
“You know I’ll be practically at home all summer.”
“You bet I do. I’m going downtown right now and buy some pretty summer dresses, and a big floppy hat with flowers on it to wear when I come to the Fort.”
“Planning to vamp me, eh?”
Betsy went slowly upstairs. She put on her suit and hat and threw a fur around her neck. She tucked the little flag into her buttonhole and went out of 909 where a bigger flag was waving in a sweet May morning. Mr. Ray had the biggest flag in the block.
Joe had said he would clear out his desk. He would come home tonight bringing his dictionary, and the tennis shoes and racquet he always kept in his locker for tennis with Sam after work. Sam would be doing the same sort of housecleaning.
Like Grandpa Warrington, Betsy thought, coming across the cornfield with his school books and the big bell sitting on top! “And the minute Grandma saw it she began to cry.”
War! Betsy thought, holding back her own tears with all the force of her stu
bborn will. War! Women never invented it.
She did not buy any new dresses, nor the big floppy hat, but went straight to the Marsh Arcade, and up the stairs to the second floor and the Hawthorne Publicity Bureau.
This was the happy office of which Joe had told her so often. One of the girls whose romances Mrs. Hawthorne had watched with such interest sat behind a desk. Mrs. Hawthorne’s reddish-brown head was bent over another typewriter. At the sound of the opening door, she looked up with her queenly air but, seeing Betsy, she rose quickly, affectionate concern flowing into her face.
“Joe’s card has come. He goes to the Fort Monday.”
“That’s hard.”
Betsy nodded.
Mrs. Hawthorne kissed her, but she turned quickly and brightly. “I want you to meet my secretary, Celia. She knows Joe.”
The small merry-faced girl smiled without speaking. Betsy smiled and sat down.
“Eleanor, I came for advice. I want to work while Joe’s gone, but I want to do something that’s helping in the war.”
Mrs. Hawthorne’s low laugh rang in welcome. “Just hang up your hat!”
“You mean…?”
“We’re up to our ears in war work; aren’t we, Celia? Half our clients are launching campaigns. Recreational centers at army camps, for example. There’s a big project for such a social center at Fort Snelling. How would you like to be sent out there for some assignments during the summer?”
“Oh, Eleanor!” Betsy winked away tears. Mrs. Hawthorne ignored them.
“When do you want to start?”
“Next Monday. The same day Joe does.”
“Be here early! We need you desperately. And about salary?”
“Can we talk that over Monday?” Betsy murmured, and fled.
That was a stirring weekend at the Rays’. Everyone was pleased about Betsy’s job. And Joe brought home not only the dictionary, the tennis shoes and racquet, but a poem Jimmy Cliff had written about the boys from the office who were going into the service. There was a verse about Joe:
“No matter what happens to Willard
Where demons of Shrecklichkeit stalk
There’ll still be a trace of a swagger
A don’t-give-a-damn in his walk….”
“I never knew how to describe your walk before!” Betsy cried, and Joe winked at her.
“That’s just Jimmy talking!”
On Saturday Mr. Ray brought home a service flag, with a big red star for Joe.
“We won’t hang it until Monday,” he announced with great conservatism.
“We’ll soon have to exchange it for a flag with two stars,” Mrs. Ray said. Paige was going in too, Julia had written.
Sunday night lunch was crowded with guests, come to say good-by to Joe.
“Going all the way to the Mississippi River. Must be five miles,” he joked to Tacy and Harry.
Sam was picking him up at five the next morning. They wanted to be at the Fort by daybreak. So the party broke up early, and Joe and Betsy went to their room.
Joe began to put things into the one small bag he was taking, talking about the next day. He’d present the post card, he planned, and then he’d be given a physical examination, probably, and be assigned to a company, a squad, his barracks, and pick up his olive drab.
“I’ll send my civies back here. Then we’ll be given rifles and start drilling.”
“And Saturday noon you’ll come home.”
“I’ll come on the double. And we’ll go dancing. Or canoeing on Lake Harriet, maybe.”
“And I’ll be coming to the Fort, on assignments. Wearing that big new hat I’m going to get.”
“And I’ll say to the fellows, ‘That’s my girl.’” He broke off. “Where’s your picture, Betsy? The one you had taken in your new coral silk dress?”
She found it for him.
“Write on it,” he said. And she wrote across it, “Betsy.”
Joe took the pen and added, “who is the loveliest lady in the world.”
All of a sudden, in spite of herself, Betsy began to cry.
Joe took her into his arms. “Honey, honey, don’t do that! Just when we’re making such nice plans!”
“But the summer…won’t last forever. You…you’ll be going overseas.”
Joe’s arms tightened. “Listen, Betsy! Listen hard! I’m coming back. Do you hear? I’m coming back. And I’ll love you even more than I do now, if that could possibly be. I’ll miss you so.”
Betsy wept softly.
“Nothing in the whole world could come between you and me, Betsy. We’re…woven together. You know that. And darling, when I come back we’ll have our little home again. We’ll have Bettina.”
“How do you know all these things?” Betsy asked through her tears.
“I know,” he said. “I feel it in my bones.” And he held her closer and let her cry as long as she felt like crying.
19
Bridesmaids at Last
WHEN THE BRIDESMAIDS arrived at the small, stone, ivy-covered church, organ music floated out to meet them. They hurried up the steps—fanciful figures in lilac and yellow organdy with large organdy hats—drawing “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” from neighborhood children crowded along the canopy. Tacy’s eyes sparkled toward Betsy.
“At last!” she said.
“At last!”
Tib had designed their costumes. Tacy, Carney, Alice, and Winona wore yellow with lilac sashes and hats. Betsy, as matron-of-honor, wore lilac with a yellow sash and hat. In the vestibule they were given flags to carry.
“What a grand idea it was,” Tacy whispered, “to make it a military wedding!” Betsy nodded and they tiptoed to peek into the nave.
Flags along the wall melted into the ruddy hues of the stained glass windows. Candles beamed on the altar. Roses and delphinium made a garden of the chancel, and bouquets were tied to the front pews.
The church was almost filled, although the groomsmen, trim and erect in newly tailored uniforms, were still seating a few late comers. Looking around the church, Betsy thought, was like taking a long happy look back over her own life, and Tacy’s—as well as Tib’s.
Her eyes picked out Tib’s Aunt Dolly from Milwaukee, whose beauty had so enchanted them as children when she came to visit in Tib’s chocolate-colored house. The hotel owner’s actress-wife who had taught Tib to dance. Their curly-haired algebra teacher, and almost all the old high-school Crowd. Tacy’s sister Katie and her husband, come from Duluth. All three Rays.
A groomsman, one of Jack’s brother officers, was escorting Jack’s mother to a pew on the right side, and whispers in the vestibule caused Betsy and Tacy to turn.
“Is it time to take Mrs. Muller down?”
“No one can be seated after the bride’s mother, you know.”
“Well, Tib’s getting out of the car!”
Another officer groomsman gave his arm to Mrs. Muller. Short, plump, and calm in a gray, crystal-trimmed dress and turban, diamonds in her ears, she was escorted to the pew of the bride’s family, on the left.
And back in the vestibule, Tib came in, a snowy cloud on the arm of her father who was almost bursting out of his cutaway with solemn emotion. Smiling, serene, she revolved for the bridesmaids. Her dress was made of chiffon, in bouffant style. The point-lace veil which framed her flowerlike face and cascaded all around her had been Aunt Dolly’s wedding veil.
“Aunt Dolly never looked lovelier,” Betsy thought.
The wedding party lined up for the procession and whispers died into silence. The brooding organ music ceased, and the church was charged with electric excitement by the strains of the wedding march.
The rector in his sober robes came out of the vestry room, followed by Jack Dunhill and Tib’s tall, fair brother Fred, both in uniform. They walked out to the chancel and stood waiting.
With a click of heels the groomsmen came down the aisle. They walked two and two. Jack’s brother officers first, then Joe and Sam, sternly military of stride and bearing,
determined that Ninety-day Wonders, in training, should acquit themselves no less well than National Guardsmen, even though the latter wore officers’ bars and sabers. Sam’s waxed mustaches ended in gleaming needles.
Behind them, slowly, to the music’s stately beat, came the bridesmaids. Tacy and Carney, followed by Alice and Winona, and then Betsy, alone—trying to remember to stand straight and not to smile. They might smile to Mendelssohn, coming back, they had been told at rehearsal.
Now it was Wagner:
“Here comes the bride,
Here comes the bride….”
Betsy could not see the bride, just eight beats behind, but all along the aisle she heard breath caught in delight, and she saw the look in Jack’s dark eyes as he stepped forward.
The groomsmen had divided and taken their places; the bridesmaids divided, and Betsy stationed herself on the left opposite Fred. She was worrying about receiving Tib’s bouquet. Fred, no doubt, had the ring on his mind.
Tib arrived. Her father gave “this Woman to be married to this Man,” and joined his wife. Jack and Tib, with Fred and Betsy, moved up toward the altar and Betsy took the bouquet without mishap, and Fred produced the ring.
The vows were echoes in Betsy’s ears of the vows she and Joe had taken:
“…for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part….”
The ring went on Tib’s finger; she received her bouquet safely; Jack kissed her and they turned radiant faces as the Mendelssohn Wedding March sounded its great peal of joy.
At the chancel steps, they paused. Tib waited with complete composure, smiling. One of the two brother officers spoke in a low voice, and, as the wedding guests gasped, two sabers flashed out and clanged together to make an arch. When Jack and Tib, laughing, had passed through, the sabers flashed back into their scabbards again.
Each groomsman joined a bridesmaid for a gay race up the aisle and out to the vestibule where now a second garden bloomed. As soon as she had kissed Tib and Jack, Betsy ran to Joe. He looked so wonderful in his olive drab, she thought! He was tanned from drilling in the sun, and above his brown cheeks his hair looked almost silvery.