Georgina's Service Stars

by Annie F. Johnston

We have had another storm. It wrecked so many vessels and sent so many fishermen to their death that the dreadful tenth of August will go down in the annals of Provincetown as a day of dole for the whole Cape. So many families suffered from it. Most of them are Portuguese, and many of them are totally unprovided for, now that their breadwinners are taken.

At first it seemed to me that I just couldn't go down to the Fayals', but Tippy, who had been several times, said I ought to, because Mrs. Fayal has always been so good about coming in for an extra day's cleaning and has done our washing so many years, and I used to play with Rosalie. I didn't know what to say or do that could be of any possible comfort. But Rosalie clung to me so the night that her father was brought home, that I sat with them till morning.

There wasn't a stronger, sturdier fisherman along the coast than Joe Fayal. I've seen him go clumping past our house a thousand times in his high boots and yellow oilskins, and the flash of his white teeth and black eyes always gave the impression of his being more alive than most people. When I saw the white drowned thing they brought home in place of him I began to be afraid—afraid of the "peril of the sea." If it can do that to one strong man it can do it to another.

All night Mrs. Fayal sat in a corner behind the stove. Sometimes she wrung her hands without a word, and sometimes she kept up a sort of moaning whimper—"The War took both my boys and now the Sea's taken my man!" I can hear her yet.

The days that followed were too full for me to worry as much as I would have done otherwise over Richard's long silence. The poverty of all those desolate families came uppermost. A fund was started for the widows and orphans, and all parts of New England came to the rescue. Artists, actors, the summer people, the home folks—everybody responded. A series of benefits and tag days began. I was asked to serve on so many committees and to help in so many enterprises that I raced through the days as if I were a fast express train, trying to make connections. I didn't have time to think during the day, but at night when I lay counting up the time since I'd had a letter, the waves booming up against the breakwater took to repeating that wail of Mrs. Fayal's, and the fog bell tolled it: "The Sea's taken my man." And I'd be so afraid I'd pull the covers over my ears to shut out the sound.

Then seven letters came in a bunch. The long silence had not been Richard's fault, nor was anything the matter. There had simply been delays in the mail service. I vowed I'd let that be a lesson to me, not to worry next time.

Barby came home late in the summer, and the very day of her arrival I had to go to Brewster on a "war-bread" campaign. I had promised to be demonstrator any time they called for me. It was tough luck to have the call hit that first day. I hadn't had her to myself for ages, and after the wild scramble of the summer I longed for a quiet day in a rocking chair at home, where we could talk over all the things that had happened since the last time we were together—principally Richard.

If there were no war now, I suppose that's about all we'd be doing these days, spending long, placid hours together, embroidering dainty lingerie and putting my initials on table linen and such things. But there'll be no "hope chest" for me while there's a soldier left in a hospital to need pajamas and bandages, or one in the trenches who needs socks. The wild beast is not only on our door-steps now, he has us by the very throats.

Barby came with the intention of taking me back with her, and Tippy, too, if she could persuade her to go. Although we're not the very important hub of a very important wheel as she is in Washington, we are the hubs of a good many little wheels which we have started, and which would stop if we left. I was wild to go, but Tippy has no patience with people who put their hands to the plow and then look back. She kept reminding me of the various things that I have gotten into good running order, such as the Junior Red Cross, and a new Busy Bees Circle which Minnie Waite is running, under my direction and prodding. They are doing wonderfully well as long as the prodding never lets up.

While we were debating the question it was settled for us in a most unexpected way. Old Mr. Carver telephoned that he needed me dreadfully in the office. Could I come and help him hold the fort for awhile? His son was very ill and had been taken to Boston for an operation. The draft had called so many men that practically the whole office force was new, and his stenographer had just left to take a government position.