I
Jock bit his mittens off and blew his thumbs;
He scraped the fresh sleet from the frozen sign:
Men Wanted—Volunteers. Like gusts of brine
He whiffed deliriums
Of sound—the droning roar of rolling, rolling drums
And shrilling fifes, like needles in his spine,
And drank, blood-bright from sunrise and wild shore,
The wine of war.
With ears and eyes he drank and dizzy brain
Till all the snow danced red. The little shacks
That lined the road of muffled hackmatacks
Were roofed with the red stain,
Which spread in reeling rings on icy-blue Champlain
And splotched the sky like daubs of sealing-wax,
That darkened when he winked, and when he stared
Caught fire and flared.
Men Wanted—Volunteers! The village street,
Topped by the slouching store and slim flagpole,
Loomed grand as Rome to his expanding soul;
Grandly the rhythmic beat
Of feet in file and flags and fifes and filing feet,
The roar of brass and unremitting roll
Of drums and drums bewitched his boyish mood—
Till he hallooed.
His strident echo stung the lake’s wild dawn
And startled him from dreams. Jock rammed his cap
And rubbed a numb ear with the furry flap,
Then bolted like a faun,
Bounding through shin-deep sleigh-ruts in his shaggy brawn,
Blowing white frost-wreaths from red mouth agap
Till, in a gabled porch beyond the store,
He burst the door;
“Mother!” he panted. “Hush! Your pa ain’t up;
He’s worser since this storm. What’s struck ye so?”
“It’s volunteers!” The old dame stammered “Oh!”
And stopped, and stirred her sup
Of morning tea, and stared down in the trembling cup.
“They’re musterin’ on the common now.” “I know,”
She nodded feebly; then with sharp surmise
She raised her eyes:
She raised her eyes, and poured their light on him
Who towered glowing there—bright lips apart,
Cap off, and brown hair tousled. With quick smart
She felt the room turn dim
And seemed she heard, far off, a sound of cherubim
Soothing the sudden pain about her heart.
How many a lonely hour of after-woe
She saw him so!
“Jock!” And once more the white lips murmured “Jock!”
Her fingers slipped; the spilling teacup fell
And shattered, tinkling—but broke not the spell.
His heart began to knock,
Jangling the hollow rhythm of the ticking clock.
“Mother, it’s fight, and men are wanted!” “Well,
Ah well, it’s men may kill us women’s joys,
It’s men—not boys!”
“I’m seventeen! I guess that seventeen—”
“My little Jock!” “Little! I’m six-foot-one.
(Scorn twitched his lip.) You saw me, how I skun
The town last Hallowe’en
At wrastlin’.” (Now the mother shifted tack.) “But Jean?
You won’t be leavin’ Jean?” “I guess a gun
Won’t rattle her.” He laughed, and turned his head.
His face grew red.
“But if it doos—a gal don’t understand:
It’s fight!” “Jock, boy, your pa can’t last much more,
And who’s to mind the stock—to milk and chore?”
Jock frowned and gnawed his hand.
“Mother, it’s men must mind the stock—our own born land,
And lick the invaders.” Slowly in the door
Stubbed the old, worn-out man. “Woman, let be!
It’s liberty:
“It’s struck him like fork-lightnin’ in a pine.
I felt it, too, like that in seventy-six;
And now, if ’twa’n’t for creepin’ pains and cricks
And this one leg o’ mine,
I’d holler young Jerusalem like him, and jine
The fight; but fight don’t come from burnt-out wicks;
It comes from fire.” “Mebbe,” she said, “it comes
From fifes and drums.”
“Dad, all the boys are down from the back hills.
The common’s cacklin’ like hell’s cocks and hens;
There’s swords and muskets stacked in the cow-pens
And knapsacks in the mills;
They say at Isle aux Noix Redcoats are holding drills,
And we’re to build a big fleet at Vergennes.
Dad, can’t I go?” “I reckon you’re a man:
Of course you can.
“I’ll do the chores to home, you do ’em thar!”
“Dad!”—“Lad!” The men gripped hands and gazed upon
The mother, when the door flew wide. There shone
A young face like a star,
A gleam of bitter-sweet ’gainst snowy islands far,
A freshness, like the scent of cinnamon,
Tingeing the air with ardor and bright sheen.
Jock faltered: “Jean!”
“Jock, don’t you hear the drums? I dreamed all night
I heard ’em, and they woke me in black dark.
Quick, ain’t you comin’? Can’t you hear ’em? Hark!
The men-folks are to fight.
I wish I was a man!” Jock felt his throat clutch tight.
“Men-folks!” It lit his spirit like a spark
Flashing the pent gunpowder of his pride.
“Come on!” he cried.
“Here—wait!” The old man stumped to the back wall
And handed down his musket. “You’ll want this;
And mind what game you’re after, and don’t miss.
Good-by: I guess that’s all
For now. Come back and get your duds.”
Jock, looming tall
Beside his glowing sweetheart, stooped to kiss
The little shrunken mother. Tiptoe she rose
And clutched him—close.
In both her twisted hands she held his head
Clutched in the wild remembrance of dim years—
A baby head, suckling, half dewed with tears;
A tired boy abed
By candlelight; a laughing face beside the red
Log-fire; a shock of curls beneath her shears—
The bright hair falling. Ah, she tried to smother
Her wild thoughts.—“Mother!
“Mother!” he stuttered. “Baby Jock!” she moaned
And looked far in his eyes.—And he was gone.
The porch door banged. Out in the blood-bright dawn
All that she once had owned—
Her heart’s proud empire—passed, her life’s dream sank unthroned.
With hands still reached, she stood there staring, wan.
“Hark, woman!” said the bowed old man. “What’s tolling?”
Drums—drums were rolling.