“I’d like to say a few words about Article 10,” said the man under the low balcony.
“Well, I guess you can!” boomed the moderator. He was preserving his self-control with difficulty. His hands fidgeted and his circular face showed a deepening crimson. “But we can’t hear what you say way back there—or see you, either,” he added. “Please step a little farther forward if you will, Mr. Warren.”
The storm of welcoming applause for the son who had so unexpectedly returned to his native town after two years of splendid service in the far-famed Foreign Legion suddenly fell to a shocked silence. They saw now why Sergt. Warren had come home. His father stood beside him. Miles needed some one to guide him up the narrow aisle—for he was blind.
Fenville had heard of the metal cross pinned to the faded tunic and had shared the pride of John Warren and his wife, Abigail; but it had not heard of the scarred face and sightless eyes. Miles had gone forth to fight for democracy “like a true knight of old,” the Fenville Weekly Gazette had said. The townspeople had not smiled at the phrase, for there had always been something gallant in Miles; he had always had a fearless and honorable outlook upon life.
“I’m not much use to them over there, so it seems good to get home,” he said. “And on town-meeting day. I knew father wanted to be here, and I did, too, so we came right over from the depot.”
Sightless: thrown back into the discard. But there was the same firm mouth and the same upright carriage of the well-shaped head. Broken? Not a bit of it. Everyone could see that. The old spirit was there, just as gallant as when he had set out for the battlefields of France.
“This Article No. 10,” continued the sergeant. “You don’t know how strange it sounds. Because I’ve come straight home from over there, you know. I was going to say, without seeing anything on the way.” He smiled. “And that’s true, too. What I mean is, I haven’t had time to get adjusted to the change. It wasn’t till just now that I said to myself, the war’s thousands of miles off, way across the ocean. Not that the ocean would stop Fritz from getting at us mighty quick if he ever beats us over there. You may depend on that.
“Some one has to make the things that are needed and get paid for them. That’s of course. But I haven’t been seeing that side. I’ve been seeing France and England and our own boys with their backs to the wall. I’ve been seeing new graveyards grow; bigger than big towns—as big as cities. And cities that were nothing but graveyards. Towns that were nothing but ash heaps. Rich lands churned up into terrible deserts.
“And I’ve met men—met them all the time—who’d been seeing the same and worse in Russia and Poland, Serbia and Roumania—the whole Christian world being battered and ripped to pieces.
“That is the way you think about it over there. What can you do to stop it—how can you help the millions that have lost their fathers or mothers, husbands or wives, or children—that have no food or homes or country? That is what you ask yourself day and night.