Georgina's Service Stars

by Annie F. Johnston

It was as if those two words held a mirror before my eyes, in which I saw myself as I looked to him. "But I'll show him I can be game," I declared between my teeth, and as soon as I had tied the ribbon on my hair I ran downstairs, determined to make that last evening the jolliest one we had ever had.

I am so thankful that we did have such a gay time, for now that things can never be the same again, he will have it to look back on and remember happily. He went away next morning, but I did not leave until nearly two weeks later. It was the day before I started to Washington that I heard the news which changed things.

I was down in the post-office, sending a money order, when Mr. Bart, the famous portrait painter, came in. Some other artist-looking man followed him in, and I heard him say as he caught up with him:

"Bart, have you heard the news about Moreland? He's reported killed in action. No particulars yet, but, it goes without saying that when he went, he went bravely."

Mr. Bart started as if he had been hit, and said something I didn't quite catch about dear old Dick, the most lovable man he ever knew. All the time the clerk was filling my money-order blank they stood there at the same window, talking about him and the winters they had spent together in Paris, their studios all in the same building, and how they'd never want to go back there now with so many of the old crowd gone. They said all sorts of nice things about Mr. Moreland. But not till one of them asked, "Where's the boy now?" did I realize the awfulness of what I had just heard. It was Richard's father they were talking about, and he was dead.

But I couldn't really believe that it was true until I got home and found Barby at the telephone. Mr. Milford had just called her up to tell her about it. And she was saying yes, she thought he ought to go to Richard at once by all means. He would feel so utterly desolate and alone in the world, for his father had been everything to him. Now that his Aunt Letty was dead he had no relatives left except Mr. Milford. She'd go herself if she thought she could be any comfort to the dear boy.

Mr. Milford said he'd catch the Dorothy Bradford within an hour, and he'd convey her messages. And that's the last I heard for ever so long. I wanted to write to Richard, but I just couldn't. There wasn't any way of telling him how sorry I was. But that night I scribbled a postscript at the end of Barby's letter to him, and signed it, "Your loving sister, Georgina." I wanted him to feel that he still had somebody who thought of him as their really own, and as belonging to the family.

I had been here at school over two weeks before any news came about him. Then Barby wrote that Mr. Milford was back, and had told her that they had a trying interview. Richard was more determined than ever to get into the war. He kept saying, "I've got to go, Cousin James. There's a double reason now, don't you see, with Dad to be avenged? I'm not asking you to advance any of my money. All I want is your consent as my guardian. They won't let me in without that."

Richard can't get the money his Aunt Letty left him till he is twenty-one. It's in trust. But he'll have a lot then, and there ought to be considerable when his father's affairs are settled. But because Mr. Moreland had said that Richard was too young to go now and must keep on in school, Mr. Milford feels it is his duty to be firm and carry out his cousin's wishes. But he told Barby he came away feeling that with the boy in that frantic frame of mind, school would do him no more good than it would a young lion. A caged and wounded one at that.

The next news of him was that he had disappeared from the school and his Cousin James couldn't find a trace of him. About that time the expressman left a big flat box for Barby with a note inside that said, "Take care of this for me, please. If I shouldn't come back I'd like for you and Georgina to have it. Dad thought it was the best thing he ever did."