Beside the window was a bookcase full of books, clothbound and sheepskin old volumes that had been read and loved, and that had old names in them, like Mrs. Wilson’s own dear lost volumes which had belonged to the forefathers of The Village. There was a note from Black Mayo, saying of course it did not make any real difference whose house the books were in, because they belonged to any one who wished to read them, but he’d rather they’d be in her home so his wife would not have them to dust.
Mrs. Wilson laughed and cried as she read the note.
A procession of people came in with food that broke all conservation rules—beaten biscuits, batter-yeast bread, fried chicken, baked ham, and countless varieties of jams and jellies and pickles and preserves.
It was bedtime when at last Mrs. Wilson and Ruth were left alone. They undressed and hand in hand, they knelt at their bedside, and then they lay down to rest in the new home, shadowed by the ruins that had been home the night before.
Who would have thought it possible for so sad a day to be so happy?
CHAPTER XI
LIKE most Southern communities, The Village had not the habit of celebrating the Fourth of July. It had its fireworks and jollifications at Christmas, which was the gala season of its year, a whole week of holiday and feasting.
But now that the United States was in the World War, Independence Day acquired a new and deeper meaning. There were flags and addresses in the Court-house, and they sang “The Star-Spangled Banner� after “Dixie.� Then there was a picnic dinner, with plenty of fried chicken and a hooverized amount of ice cream and cake.
The pleasant new patriotic enthusiasm about the Fourth was tremendously deepened two days later when Black Mayo came to the war gardens and told the workers about that wonderful American Fourth of July in France.
The American Expeditionary Force had crossed the submarine-infested ocean and had landed, every man safe, at “a seaport of France.� On the Fourth, the splendid, brave, eager fellows in khaki and blue jackets marched along the streets of Paris, hundreds and thousands of them, forerunners of hundreds of thousands who were coming.