A MEMORIAL DAY STORY
By LAURA ALTON PAYNE
“We called them the kid-gloved Dandy Fifth
When we passed them on parade.”
A sharp, imperative rat-a-tat-tat on the class-room door almost at her back startled the speaker, Sidney Dallas. She turned for an instant, but that instant was enough to scatter her wits like chaff before the wind. She paused—stammered—paused again, then repeated vaguely:
“We called—we called them the kid-gloved Dandy Fifth
When we passed them on parade.
We called—we called—”
But the words would not be coaxed back. Her mind was a perfect blank. She was so confused that she did not see that the visitor who was being ushered in by Bess Martin, and whose sharp knock had so disconcerted her, was her own mother.
A hot flush of shame scorched her face, the crowd of attentive faces before her began to waver, her knees grew weak, her feet cowardly, but she made one more brave effort:
“We called—we called”—she repeated weakly and hurriedly, then stopped short.
“But it would not come,” murmured mischievous Ted Scott, lugubriously. Ted had been crowded to the front seat, which he shared with two other boys. The boys snickered, and Sidney’s misery was complete. Never before had she failed in a speech, or realized the humiliation.
All a-tremble she stepped off the platform, and with scarlet face and tearful eyes passed down the aisle between the double row of visitors, whose looks of sympathy her distorted imagination turned into looks of derision at her distress. But the tears should not fall, and she would not lower her head. As she reached her seat she caught a look of amusement on the face of Myrtle Emmons, who sat at the desk immediately behind her own. It was that that gave her the bit over her runaway self-possession. Myrtle was somewhat noted for making fun of people. She would show Myrtle how little she cared.
Disregarding Myrtle’s nudge, she concentrated her attention upon the beautifully decorated school-room. It had been transformed into a veritable bower, not with boughs of pine and cedar as in the Eastern States, but with fragrant branches of catalpa with their great clusters of snowy blossoms and with immense sprays of feathery asparagus. The platform, as well as the teacher’s desk at the back of it, was banked with potted ferns and palms and flowering plants. The beribboned waste-basket formed a huge bouquet of feathery greenery, amidst which tall, graceful sunflowers bowed their golden heads. That artistic touch was her own, and she gazed at it with pride. Sunflowers and asparagus adorned the pictures and caught up the folds of the large flag draped gracefully over the front blackboard, and of the bright bunting festooned around the walls.
Flags and sunflowers, sunflowers and flags—a combination so popular that she should always associate the golden emblem-flower of her State with the glorious emblem of her country. They had devoted more time than usual to their decorations, for, the following Monday being Memorial Day, they had turned their “last day” exercises into a memorial service. Owing to the naval victory of scarce a month previous, patriotism was at a white heat, and patriotic selections of spirit shared the honors with tributes to the dead—both the Blue and the Gray, sectionalism being forgotten in the new union of the North and the South.
But it did not require recent victory to stir Sidney’s enthusiasm; she was at all times intensely patriotic. As a small child, a mere babe, she had listened enthralled to her father’s tales of the Civil War, through many of whose terrible battles he had passed. She invariably chose patriotic selections to speak. Such a deed as described in the “Dandy Fifth” made her forget herself. And now, of all times, to fail to-day! The school were singing softly:
“Cover them over—yes, cover them over—
Parent and husband, and brother, and lover:
Crown in your hearts those dead heroes of ours.
And cover them over with beautiful flowers.”
How she would love to lay a tribute of flowers upon the graves of the Dandy Fifth’s many dead heroes! And, oh, shame! she had failed to give them even the tribute of honor due them—failed miserably!
“Lying so silent by night and by day,
Sleeping the years of their manhood away.”
That meant the most of the Dandy Fifth. She could see the gaunt, silent forms, fallen at their posts in that awful hour that “tried men’s souls.” But theirs stood the test—stood it grandly.
“Swiftly they rushed to the help of the right,
Firmly they stood in the shock of the fight.”
Stood firm—firm? Did they not? Why, they made a glorious stand—none braver in all the war, none more deserving of honor!—and she had left them with their courage unproven, with the scorn of their comrades upon them, before they had been given a chance to make their derisive epithet a name to be proud of for all time. Oh, she could not bear it! she could not bear it! She must save the honor of the Dandy Fifth.
The thought was electric. It shocked into full life the resolve already half formed in her mind. Hastening up to Miss Mason she whispered a request, which was smilingly granted. With a bright face Sidney hurried from the room just as the next number was called. She meant to go home, find the poem, then come back and redeem herself. She had but three blocks to go, and that distance was covered with flying feet. To her dismay she found the door locked. Of course, her mother meant to attend the exercises. No doubt she was in the room all the time, and had witnessed her failure. But—she must get in. She looked for the key in its customary hiding-place when all the family were expected to be absent at once; it was not there. Recent petty thieving in the neighborhood had probably induced Mrs. Dallas to take the key with her.
Sidney was dismayed. She rushed from door to door, and from window to window. All were securely fastened. She sat down on the porch to think a moment. Perhaps she could get in through an upper window; she had left her own window, which, fortunately, was over the kitchen, lowered slightly and the screen unlatched. She could reach the spring through the opening, lower it still more, then crawl through. Desperation lent her strength to drag the long, heavy ladder from the barn and to raise it to the low kitchen roof. A moment later she pattered over the flat tin roof to the window—only to find further evidence of her mother’s caution. It was closed and latched.
Then, in spite of her courageous soul and her fifteen years, Sidney gave up to a tearful despair for a few minutes. Down upon the tin roof she sat, huddled close up in the corner, and, bowing her head upon her knees, wept silent tears of mortification. The thought that she would have to leave the Dandy Fifth unhonored brought forth the bitterest drops of all.
But—they did not give up. Neither would she. Something must be done. She would go back to the school-house and get the key, come back and get the book, then return and save the day for the Dandy Fifth if possible.
It was a very tired, hot-faced girl that labored up the second flight of stairs at the school-house. As she paused for breath a moment in the upper hall she heard Rob Ellison stentoriously depicting “Sheridan’s Ride.” In the room across the hall the “Fifth Graders” were singing “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” and farther on the “Sixths” were sending out a vigorous chorus of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Passing into the library, a small room just across the hall, she sat down to cool off, and at the same time to work up sufficient courage to face the crowded room in search of her mother. She didn’t want to disconcert another speaker by knocking on the door in order to call her mother out. She glanced around the room. Right there in that corner was where she stood when she rehearsed the “Dandy Fifth” to the elocution teacher.
Mechanically Sidney placed herself in the accustomed position, and half unconsciously began to recite the poem in a low tone. To her amazement and delight she went through it without a break. Whether it was the effect of association, or whether her recreant memory had suddenly chosen to return, she neither questioned nor cared, she was so overjoyed. She tried it again, then a third time, all unconscious of an interested listener beyond the closed door—Prof. Marlow, who stood there smiling to himself as the speaker’s voice rose higher and higher with returning confidence.
As Sidney finished with a triumphant flourish, he clapped his hands softly, then opened the door to remark smilingly. “Well done, Miss Sidney. Now, rally to the charge again, and march on to victory.”
Sidney blushed: she knew he had witnessed her failure. She felt that explanations were in order.
Prof. Marlow held up a warning finger. “At the eleventh hour, Miss Sidney,” he said, with a smile.
“It’s the twelfth hour that tells,” she retorted merrily, and passed into the school-room. Prof. Marlow followed her. He was curious to see how such a plucky effort would turn out.
Sidney was met with many swift glances as she entered, but her radiant face showed no trace of her recent failure. A few moments later she again faced the many expectant eyes, now no longer dreaded. No sudden rat-a-tat-tat could scatter her wits again—no, not even a cannon’s roar, for the Dandy Fifth’s honor was at stake. The audience greeted her enthusiastically. It is human nature to admire courage even in small things. Self was forgotten; every thought and feeling was centred on the subject in hand—that famous regiment of young aristocrats, men who knew not toil, who had never suffered want or endured hardship, whose fastidiousness fastened upon them the scornful epithet, “The Dandy Fifth.”
Her listeners saw it all: the old fort “somewhere down on the Rapidan” that the Dandy Fifth was ordered to hold; the fierce onslaught of the enemy along the whole line; the raging of battle day after day; how gloriously the old fort, the “key of the whole line,” on which hung the fate of the whole army, was held by the Dandy Fifth against all odds—a brave, determined foe without and starvation within. The water gave out; they fought on. Another day, and their rations were gone; they fought on. One by one, they sank to “rest where they wearied and lie where they fell.” A third day of fierce siege—a fourth, then reinforcements fought their way through, inch by inch, to the beleaguered men. And what a sight met their gaze!—a few gaunt-eyed men behind the guns, and many, many more lying as they fell, in the stupor of famine or ghastly and rigid in death. But the old flag floated still!—and the “kid-gloved Dandy Fifth” had proved that white hands are not incompatible with brave hearts. How their old comrades cheered!—and cheered! And how proud they were to clasp those brave, emaciated white hands!
Sidney’s little head might well have been turned by praise had it been that kind of a head, she received so many words of commendation. Ted Scott led the applause, and it was his hands that gave the final appreciative clap. Even Myrtle Emmons congratulated her. “It was grand, Sid,” she said, earnestly. “But how could you ever do it after breaking down once? I never could, and I always break down. I was awfully sorry for you, for, you see, I know how it goes. But, say, Sid! I thought I couldn’t help laughing as you came down the aisle; old Mrs. Perkins stalked along right behind you, her battered bonnet over one ear as usual, and that ancient, solitary, stiff, bedraggled, black feather sticking straight up. I always have to laugh when I see it, though, of course, I oughtn’t.”
“So do I,” returned Sidney, with sudden cordiality. So she had misjudged Myrtle, after all.
“But how could you do it?” persisted Myrtle.
Then out came the whole story, even to the tears, and they had a merry time over it.
“And to think that I was the cause of it,” laughed Mrs. Dallas. “But I am glad my little girl was brave enough to turn defeat into victory.”
“I don’t think it was really I, mamma,” said Sidney, slowly and thoughtfully. “It was the Dandy Fifth.”