The dark mother

by Waldo David Frank

David came again. Again, his uncle put him off. He was expecting word from Washington about commissions. How would David like to go as a full-fledged lieutenant?

“Worth waiting a short while for, eh, my boy? Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt has advised us to wait. They are turning ordinary soldiers away. How would you like to defeat your own chances by being in such a childish hurry? If you really want to serve,” he looked sharply at his nephew, “you must wait.”

So David waited. He was not anxious to fight. His talk with Tom was a strange reason, a feeble one, for turning into a soldier. David knew dimly that his resolve had sprung contrariwise from a host of impulses and moods having no true connection with the War.

The public clamor overcrowded the camps. Manila Bay was won. There was small need of men. David in the pause began to create pictures of what battle meant. He did not like it. He was no coward. Simply, he thought death to so young and fortunate a man must be a pity. He was a little sorry for those he would leave behind, if he did die. Nor did he wish to insist on losing a leg or an eye. He would have to bear the brunt of that. And it seemed a matter of insisting. True, if he were killed, Lois might lose her flippant bloom. That was an inducement. But there was no hurry even about hurting Lois. He could afford to postpone her anguish for a brief while. He could in the meantime enjoy it actually, by telling her about it.

“Lois,” he came to say to her one evening, “I am going to enlist and go to Cuba.”

They were sitting in their customary room. Nothing had greatly changed. If David’s love for Lois had become an easier burden the reason was that he no longer drew so near to her. He did not sit so close and hold her hand and let the song of her hair atune his nerves. She whipped his blood less: and all of his love was the mere increased turmoil of his youth when her youth flowed upon it: the added leap of two dancing streams made one.

She also had learned the need of forbearance. But his aloofness spurred her. There was that one time when she placed her cheek against his, nestled her sharp shoulder in his breast.

“You don’t like your old cousin a bit any more, do you?”

David held himself very still and apart. Then, what bound him to himself broke loose. What he did was splintering from his willed reserve so fast that soon all of his reserve was flown from him in action. His arms held her. All her body measured its panting frailty against him. His mouth hurt her lips. The rest of her was molten and not hurt half enough.

Lois struggled. For five minutes, she played a painful game of coolness. Then, she was composed. David dared not to speak. Whatever it was that had happened must be nothing, since Lois denied it. Whatever it was must be for the last time.