Captain Zelotes understood, however. He nodded.
“It used to look good to me when I was bound home after a v'yage,” he observed. “Well, son, I cal'late your grandma and Rachel are up to the depot by this time waitin' for you. We ain't due for pretty nigh an hour yet, but I'd be willin' to bet they're there.”
Albert smiled. “My, I do want to see them!” he said.
“Shouldn't wonder a mite if they wanted to see you, boy. Well, I'm kind of glad I shooed that reception committee out of the way. I presumed likely you'd rather have your first day home to yourself—and us.”
“I should say so! Newspaper reporters are a lot of mighty good fellows, but I hope I never see another one. . . . That's rather ungrateful, I know,” he added, with a smile, “but I mean it—just now.”
He had some excuse for meaning it. The death of Albert Speranza, poet and warrior, had made a newspaper sensation. His resurrection and return furnished material for another. Captain Zelotes was not the only person to meet the transport at the pier; a delegation of reporters was there also. Photographs of Sergeant Speranza appeared once more in print. This time, however, they were snapshots showing him in uniform, likenesses of a still handsome, but less boyish young man, thinner, a scar upon his right cheek, and the look in his eyes more serious, and infinitely older, the look of one who had borne much and seen more. The reporters found it difficult to get a story from the returned hero. He seemed to shun the limelight and to be almost unduly modest and retiring, which was of itself, had they but known it, a transformation sufficiently marvelous to have warranted a special “Sunday special.”
“Will not talk about himself,” so one writer headed his article. Gertie Kendrick, with a brand-new ring upon her engagement finger, sniffed as she read that headline to Sam Thatcher, who had purchased the ring. “Al Speranza won't talk about himself!” exclaimed Gertie. “Well, it's the FIRST time, then. No wonder they put it in the paper.”
But Albert would not talk, claiming that he had done nothing worth talking about, except to get himself taken prisoner in almost his first engagement. “Go and ask some of the other fellows aboard here,” he urged. “They have been all through it.” As he would not talk the newspaper men were obliged to talk for him, which they did by describing his appearance and his manner, and by rehashing the story of the fight in the French village. Also, of course, they republished some of his verses. The Lances of Dawn appeared in a special edition in honor of its author's reappearance on this earth.
“Yes sir,” continued Captain Zelotes, “the reception committee was consider'ble disappointed. They'd have met you with the Orham band if they'd had their way. I told 'em you'd heard all the band music you wanted in camp, I guessed likely, and you'd rather come home quiet. There was goin' to be some speeches, too, but I had them put off.”
“Thanks, Grandfather.”