“It will be now, I think,” she was saying. “The Lord God will send His sign when they put Dick——”
The rest of the words couldn’t be framed. Of course Dick’s soul wasn’t there; it was somewhere about, above, close—much interested and a good deal amused as well as thrilled; she felt that. This was only Dick’s body they were putting away covered with medals and flowers, laid on that priceless earth brought from France, scattered down for him to rest on. It was only his body. But such a precious, dear body; it had been so warm and strong—Oh, God! She alone out of the thousands knew that it was Dick, and even she—The Lord God certainly was slow about sending His sign.
The beautiful church service was read; Dick’s soul was committed to God and his body to the grave. Some one touched a silver bar and the coffin sank slowly; a man in uniform placed a final wreath—from all the men of all our fighting armies. Then an old Indian in magnificence of chief’s feathers hobbled up and took off his sweeping war-bonnet, whose white feathers trailed to his moccasins, and laid it with a sort of stick across the open tomb. It was the last tribute. The warrior of ancient America saluted America’s warrior of to-day. A salvo of artillery. Another salvo—and another. The woman stared about. Dick would bivouac to-night in great company. All around him were monuments cut with names that were echoes of thunder of guns. There lay Porter and Crook; yonder lay Dewey. The slope carries along innumerable headstones; over the ridge are the grass ramparts of old Fort Myer, graves thick about them; she sensed these things as the guns rang the salvoes.
The guns had stopped; a bugler, standing out, was playing “Taps”—the soldier’s good night. With the final silver note the artillery broke into the roar of the national salute of twenty-one guns. The crowds moved, shifted, thinned. The bright uniforms scattered and disappeared. But the tall, black figure stood there, conscious of the people only as a swimmer in deep water is conscious of the waves. She was in them, of them, but they had no personality for her. Slowly the huge audience spread away through the trees. The pageant was over. The pageant—what matter was that? Dick; Dick was dead and buried, and she stood by the grave of an Unknown Soldier and reproached God. He had sent her no sign that this boy was hers. Down among the new white crosses in the cemetery below moved figures; there are always figures moving among those crosses—but the woman felt herself alone. All the pomp and ceremony being finished, she was alone with her boy. She knelt near the new grave; the black veil blew about her, covering and uncovering the gold star on her sleeve.
“God,” she whispered, “bless the men to-morrow who are trying to bring peace. I don’t know whether they know that it’s Dick who’s bringing it or not. I don’t care. I know, God, and You know. Only let Dick be the Peace Bringer, and let an American speak the master word. I thought the sign would be to-day, but I’ll be patient if it isn’t to be to-day. But, mighty God, don’t fail me in the end. You know how I couldn’t bear that. It means having Dick again—ever—somehow—I can’t say it well, but you’re God and You know how those things are tied together. Peace and Dick’s immortality and the sign. Be merciful; give it to me.”
A week later in Kentucky blunt little Lynnette was reasoning with her. “You can’t expect to set a date with the Almighty,” reasoned Lynnette. “I think it will come—I do think so, though I don’t know why I think it. Only that such a longing as yours focussed on one thing must be a psychological force. And, whatever God is, He does answer prayer somehow.”
“Yes, He does,” said the woman. “Wasn’t Hughes’ word sent straight as lightning from heaven? It came the day after the funeral—Dick’s funeral. It came out of Dick’s tomb. I can’t help believing the good Lord did plan, along with the salvation of the nations, to make Dick His Peace Bringer.” She waited a moment, eyes glowing with deep light. Then: “‘Whatsoever ye ask in My name, believing, ye shall receive it.’” A thousand times she had repeated that.
Lynnette nodded practically. “Uh-huh, that says it. God certainly did stir up Hughes when he got off that proposition. Why shouldn’t we believe it was partly, anyhow, the huge emotion of the Unknown Soldier that pushed him? The sign may come in some shape you’re not dreaming. Likely it will—but it’ll come. I’m sure.”
“I can’t imagine in what shape—that terrifies me at times. It seems so impossible. And if it shouldn’t come!”
“You mustn’t think that,” rebuked Lynnette. “It depends so much on psychology, and your will may be a big part. You don’t have to imagine what it will be. Yet I—do imagine things.”