“But this room, it was home to us. Home.” He said it softly. “I can see it now. The table there and the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp. Father dozing by the fire. Brother Tom reading. He was a scholar, Tom was. Made a fine man, he would, if—” Once more he did not finish.
“Father was a pious man,” he rumbled on after a time. “Wonder how many sons of truly pious men make their mark in the world? Many of them, I believe.
“We always had prayers on our knees before we went upstairs. Father’s prayer was always much the same. One sentence I remember well: ‘We thank Thee, our Father, that it is well with us as it is.’ It wasn’t very well with us all the time. But we had peace. The doors were never locked. Precious little to steal, and no one to steal it.
“Peace!” he mused. “Sometimes I wonder whether this eternal struggle is worth the cost. When I got older and went out with my father to help with the work, when we came rattling home in the dark in our old lumber wagon, we had peace. No one wanted to kill us. But now—”
Once again he did not finish. There was no need. Full well Johnny knew that there were those who wished this faithful officer beneath the sod.
“But when the city gets you—” The Captain’s tone had changed. “When it gets you, there’s no turning back. The noise, the rush, the excitement of life that flows on and on like a torrent—it gets you, and you never, never turn back.
“Remember the story of poor old Lot?”
“Yes, I remember.” Johnny knew that great old book.
“I’ve always felt sorry for Lot.” The Captain chuckled. “Country chap come to the city to live. Got his wife turned to salt, he did. Lost about all he had. But he couldn’t help it. City got him. Sodom got him. Chicago’s got you and me, Johnny. And Chicago won’t let us go until they bring us out to some spot like the one we passed a mile from here, and put us away where the hemlocks sing and sigh over the marble that is white in the moonlight.
“So we’ll fight on, Johnny.” He prodded the fire. “We won’t accomplish much. No one ever does. But we’ll do our bit—do it like men.