Georgina's Service Stars

by Annie F. Johnston

After awhile there was a sound of music down the street, and the marine band came marching across the great field towards us, at the head of the litter-bearers. It was a sunny afternoon, and the band played a gay marching tune as they advanced. I was feeling so uplifted over Barby's being on the grandstand among the honor guests, looking her prettiest, that I didn't realize the significance of the scene at first. Then the thought stabbed me like a knife, that on every one of those litters somebody's best beloved might some day be stretched, desperately wounded maybe, dead or dying. I couldn't help thinking "suppose I should see Father brought in that way, or Richard." When I glanced across at Babe the tears were running down her cheeks, so it evidently affected her the same way.

I'd have been willing to wager she was seeing Watson on one of those stretchers. When we got back to our room, which is a large one with twin beds in it, she dived under hers and pulled out the big florist's box and carried it to the bathroom to sprinkle the flowers. It's wonderful how fresh the thing has kept. She's had it nearly a week. She treats it like a mother would an idiot child, keeps it out of sight of the public, but hangs over it when alone with a tenderness that is positively touching.

Babe's the funniest thing! Every time the hall door opens she is out and up the little stairway to the roof, like a cat. It is a nice place to go, for there is a magnificent view of the city from there, and at night it's entrancing, with the Monument illuminated, and the great dome showing up when the searchlights play. But I don't believe it's the view Babe is after. She wants to be alone. Twice when I went up after her to tell her it was time to start somewhere, I found her sitting staring at a rubber plant in front of her, as if she didn't see even that. And once she was leaning against the iron railing which surrounds the roof, oblivious to the fact that that section of it was rusty. It simply ruined her best evening dress, a delicate blue veiling made over white silk. When we got downstairs to the light there were great streaks of iron rust across the whole front, where the bars had pressed against it.

Saturday night Mrs. Waldon had a long-distance call from her cousin, Mac Gordon. His ship was in from the long cruise, and the boys were scattering to their homes for a short visit before being sent to join the fleet abroad. He wanted to know if he could stop by next day to see her, on his way home. She told him to come and welcome, and bring any of the other boys who cared to come. That Babe and I were with her.

Well, Sunday afternoon when Mac walked in there was a whole string of boys behind him; Bob Mayfield and Billy Burrell and Watty Tucker. Only four in all by actual count, but added to the six already in the room, the little apartment seemed brim full and running over. Two of her old army cronies were there besides Barby.

I wondered what Mrs. Waldon was going to do about feeding them all, because the cook is always away on Sunday night. But when the time came she simply announced they'd serve supper in the time-honored Crabtown fashion. At that the men all got up and crowded out into the little kitchenette to see what she had on her "emergency shelf" and to announce what part each one would be responsible for on the menu.

When we were ready to sit down to the table we noticed that Babe and Watson were missing, and when I tried to recall when I had seen them last, I was sure they had slipped away during the general exodus to the kitchen. And I am sure that when I ran up the steps to the roof garden with the announcement, "The rarebit is ready," neither one of them was a bit grateful to me.

I was sorry Duffield Locke wasn't with the boys. His family met him in New York and they went on to New York together. Bob Mayfield tried to tease me about him. He said Duff had my picture in the back of his watch. When I hotly denied it, and vowed I had never given him one, except a little snapshot taken with Lillian of just our heads, he said, "Well, Duff had a pair of scissors."

After we went to our room that night, late as it was, Babe re-packed her trunk and deliberately squeezed all her hats into one compartment, thereby ruining two of them for life, to make room in the tray for that florist box. The flowers were badly shriveled up by that time. Seeing from my face that an explanation was necessary, she said she couldn't carry it back on the train as she had intended, because Watson was going up to Provincetown the same time we were, to visit his cousins, the Nelsons, and she didn't want him to see it.

"But the Nelsons aren't in Provincetown this summer," I answered. "And he knows it, because I told him what Laura said in her last letter. Besides, why shouldn't he see his own floral offering? He'd be complimented to think you cared enough for it to lug it all the way home."