This boy, beside whom Jane paused in her rounds, and who now spoke to her, had had from the first something familiar about him. But she had not been able to place him in her remembrance and had decided that it was only the type she recognized, not the individual. Now, however, as she bent to catch the low-spoken words, she realized what had happened; here was a boy from home!
“You don’t know me, do you?” he said, with difficulty.
“I almost thought I did, but wasn’t sure. Do you come from my town and ought I to know you? You see—you must have changed quite a bit.”
She was looking intently into his face, and her reassuring smile answered his wistful one.
“No, I didn’t expect you to know me, but I—kind of hoped—you would. I know you. You was there when I said I’d enlist—up on the hill.”
Her thoughts leaped back to that last Sunday of Robert Black’s departure and to the service on the hillside. Her face lighted with recognition, and the boy saw it.
“Oh, yes—I do remember—of course I do. I sewed a star on a service flag for you and the other three who went from the hill, and took it up to the schoolhouse before I went away. I think I know your name.” She racked her memory hastily for it and found it, and the boy’s eyes were suffused with joy as she spoke it. “Aren’t you—Enos Dyer?”
“Yes, I’m Enie Dyer, only I don’t like to be called that over here ‘cause it sounds like ‘Heinie.’ Say,”—he scanned her face anxiously,—“know anything ’bout where the preacher is now?”
“Mr. Black? Nothing at all. It is weeks since I had any news of him. His division has been sent up toward the Front, and they may be in things by now; we get only rumours here about what is happening on the other sectors.”
“I wish I knew,” he said anxiously. “I get to thinkin’ ’bout him a lot. He didn’t know me any, but I knew him all right. After that time he buried the Dunstan girl I used to come down to his church. I liked to hear him talk. But I always skun out the minute things was over, so he never really did lay eyes on me till that last day. I don’t s’pose he’d remember me.”