But when it came—poor little Sabinsport! It came like a stroke of lightning. One evening Dick was called up by Ralph’s successor in the Argus office. “Parson,” he said, in a broken voice, “I wish you would come down. It’s dreadful! The casualty list has just come in—there are twelve of our men dead, Parson—twelve of Sabinsport’s boys. Ralph’s name is among them. How are we going to get it to the people? There is no notice to any family yet, as I know, and I cannot call them up. Won’t you come down and help me?”
It was not long before Dick was bending over the list; and the two men were asking themselves who would better go here, who there, who’s the friend of this family, who the friend of that? They called up the priest for the three of his own boys; the Rev. Mr. Pepper, who, in spite of his pacifism, still had kept a gentle heart, for one of his flock. They called up Jake Mulligan, and between them the sad duty was performed.
The news flew. All Sabinsport wept that night. The next morning there was laid at every door in town—subscribers or not—a little extra sheet of the Argus—Sabinsport’s Honor Roll. And first in the list was the name of Lieut. Michael Sullivan, killed at Delville Wood, July 15, 1916.
It fell to Dick to go to Patsy. It was nearly midnight when he called up Father McCullon and told him. “Wait until morning,” the old man said, “and come yourself, Dick. Mother and I could never do it.”
Patsy had been back in Sabinsport since the beginning of the year. After her marriage she lived near Ralph’s camp until he had sailed in January. By a fortune which seemed to both of them miraculous, he had been promoted until he was a lieutenant in the Rainbow Division. He had sailed, believing that he would soon be in the trenches. To Patsy, as to him, this had been a matter of glad rejoicing. She had come back so proudly to Sabinsport that Mary Sabins had been shocked. “To think anybody,” she had said to Patsy, “could rejoice when her husband was in danger of his life. I cannot understand it, Patsy, and you in your condition, too,”—for Patsy was scarcely less proud or less open about the fact that Ralph was in France in the trenches than that she soon would be a mother—the mother of a little Ralph, she proudly announced, for she seemed to have no doubt in the world that she would bear a son. “Ralph wanted a son.”
The boy had come in the spring. Never in her capable, vivid life had Patsy been so proud and so joyous.
And Ralph was dead, and Dick was on his way to the farm-house to tell her. It was early when he came up the walk—and Patsy, radiant and beautiful—oh, far more beautiful than she had ever been—met him at the door, for she had seen him coming. She needed no telling. With that divination of womankind whose loved ones are at the front, Patsy sensed that Dick brought her sorrowful news of Ralph. She did not even lose her color, but, taking him by the hand, led him into the cheerful sitting room where, before the fire, little Ralph was cooing in his crib. She took the baby up, and standing straight and proud, said, “Tell me, Dick.”
“Ralph’s name is on the casualty list, Patsy—among the dead. But do not lose hope,” he pled, “it may be a mistake.”
“It is not a mistake, Dick. He knew it. I knew it. We fought it out together. I promised to live to raise our son. Take him, Dick—take him,” and she held out the child, crumpling to the floor as Dick sprang to her side.
Stricken as she was—so stricken that in the coming days life itself seemed to ooze from her veins and she lay for hours in long white swoons, the spirit of her remained undaunted. She had made her sacrifice when she said good-by to her husband. As Ralph had had to fight like every man of passionate heart and living imagination to conquer his natural fear of death in battle, so Patsy had fought to conquer her fear of his loss. Both had won, for when the test came both were victorious.