Read Ebook: Where the Souls of Men are Calling by Harris Credo Fitch Neill John R John Rea Illustrator

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Ebook has 883 lines and 52799 words, and 18 pages

ough not just at this spot, nor until she had gathered up her forces with which she might artfully resist him awhile longer.

"Well, goodbye, everybody," she said quickly. "I must hurry downtown."

"Without seeing Jeb?" Miss Sallie exclaimed.

"Oh, I'll see him soon. We can't escape each other very long in Hillsdale," she laughed.

Jeb, having entered by the front way, was now heard whistling as he came through the house, and the next moment he stepped out on the side veranda; then stopped, crying joyously:

"Marian!"

"Hello, Jeb," she said, advancing with a candor that belied the look Miss Sallie had surprised half a minute before.

"Oh, Jeb," Miss Veemie glided toward him, "I've been so worried for fear your gun had exploded and done something! Are you tired, dear?"

This adulation had been a daily occurrence in Jeb's life since he was four years old, when these adoring aunts had taken him beneath their roof. Usually he met it half way, but now, with an indifference that in a moment of less excitement would have been pronounced, he passed her and caught Marian's hand, crying:

"That savors horribly of monkeys, Jeb," she laughed, quietly withdrawing her hand. "You used to do better!"

"I meant to ask how long since you dropped down from heaven, angel," he smiled. "My word, but you're looking fit! For a three times winner, you just about take the cake!"

Jeb waited until they had quite disappeared, then he crossed to Marian, asking soberly:

"Why did you run away, just when you promised to tell me what I wanted to hear?--and why didn't you answer my letters?"

"I wonder," she said, turning toward the flower beds, "if the tulips will be in bloom soon! I'd so love to see them again!"

He laughed tenderly, but persisted:

"Why did you run away?--why didn't you answer my letters?"

"Oh, those things happened two years ago, Jeb. Haven't you advanced at all?--do you always live in the past like a silly old man? You didn't write but three times, anyway!"

"Good Lord, how many times did you expect me to write without getting an answer?" he cried.

"Oh," she answered indifferently, "as many times as you thought it was worth doing. I might have answered the fourth; one can never tell about those things. Miss Sallie says you're getting ready to fight, Jeb. Are you thinking of going over to join the British or French?"

From the targets, over which he was now bending in feverish interest, she glanced up at him without being observed, her face somewhat puzzled. She felt extremely gratified that Jeb had made these perfect scores, and her spirit thrilled with his martial fervor; but, on the other hand, he had just been talking about a certain question which she had evaded two years ago by running away to take a hospital course in nursing, and it seemed to her that he was dismissing it rather abruptly. Yet she knew Jeb's temperament, as any girl will know a man with whom she has been a play-fellow since childhood; and, although hardly prepared for it just at this moment, she read aright that his love of self, his thirst for praise, had in no wise diminished. Had she been asked for a direct answer she could have told that his enthusiasm for target practice in the woods, where for hours he pretended to be shooting Germans, was vital to his abnormally active imagination; for Jeb, although a giant in strength and a god in grace, possessed the brow and eyes of an inveterate dreamer.

Formerly his dreams had run to adventure of a milder form, sometimes to verse, once or twice or thrice or more to love. He had, as a matter of fact, for short periods loved nearly all the girls in Hillsdale who were pretty enough, and clever enough; never becoming really serious--unless it was with her! But she had laughed at him then, sympathetically and sweetly, reminding him that they had grown up together, besides being each of them twenty-four.

Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie had watched through a prayer-glass the beginning of that ardent affair. From their lofty place of vantage twenty-four and twenty-four might not have been quite suitable, but years could stand for naught against the tower of mental strength and character with which they knew Marian to be possessed. They would gladly have greeted her as one of themselves, one to mother Jeb, to see that he was warmly clothed and did not eat imprudently. He had always been a child to them! Many times, in the bygone days, Miss Sallie would hint at this ideal mating, till at last the daughter of Amos Strong had wrapped the little woman in her arms, saying sweetly that she preferred something in life besides "mothering an overgrown, selfish boy."

It had cost her something to say this, for in her heart she was just beginning to know how adoringly she could be these things and more to him. As a child she mothered him; at ten he bullied her; in their 'teens she had bossed and mothered him again! Love him? She admitted it through tears to her mirror--and yet, withal, she had understood him just a shade too well!

Then came the day--as such days will--when she was cornered, pinioned, made captive!--when she could no longer fight, and knew that surrender was but a matter of hours. Much of that night she had lain awake watching her heart and her level judgment wage their last battle; and the next afternoon, an hour before he was to come, she quietly left for Baltimore, or New York--or it may have been Chicago--to take the course in nursing.

Her eyes now swept him with tenderness as the memory of that day came rushing back, but a shadow of disappointment crossed them as she saw that he was still looking, fascinated, at the proof of his skill. Was her return, after an absence of two years, so meaningless that he could be engrossed by a few sheets of inert paper while she stood within touch of him?

"You shoot very well, Jeb," she said, casually.

"Don't I though!" he cried. "See, Marian--here's the five hundred!"

"I should think," she said, glancing at it indifferently, "that you'd join the regular army."

"You bet I will, if the time ever comes when we've got to fight! I wouldn't ask for anything better! Gee, I wish we'd declare war to-morrow!"

"I rather think," she slowly replied, "that your wish is very near fulfillment, Jeb."

He turned quickly and stared at her.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, tensely.

Had her eyes been looking at him then she might have seen something in his drawn face and blanched cheeks that would have struck dismay into her very soul; but, as it was, she attributed the question purely and simply to his eagerness for service, and answered with a suggestion of sharpness that was not lost on him:

"Because there's a limit, Jeb, to the patience of a country, just as there is to the patience of men and women. Even the mildest of us reach the end of our endurance, sooner or later," she added, not knowing whether she wanted to laugh or be furious.

"Oh, come," he cried, squaring his shoulders. "I thought maybe you had some inside news from your father! Don't be a gloom, Marian! The war's three thousand miles away from us, and that's where it's going to stay--take my word for it!"

"But I thought you were crazy for it," she turned on him in surprise.

He shifted uneasily, but his voice rang strong and true as he answered:

"I am crazy for it! What d'you suppose I've been getting ready for all these months? But you leave wars and that sort of thing to us men! You haven't anything to do with 'em!"

"We have to nurse you in wars, Jeb, just as we do in times of peace," she laughed. "Really, I don't see how such big babies as some men I know can conduct a first class war, anyhow!"

This was the old Marian again; lightly bantering, deliciously good to look upon. He moved close to her, and asked earnestly:

"Why did you run away from me?"

"I wanted to be a nurse," she answered.

"But why did you decide so quickly to be a nurse?"

She hesitated, then smiled:

"It was better than the other alternative."

"Now that you are a nurse, can't you accept the other alternative, too? You know I want you just as much."

His voice, deep and resonant with a timbre that went to women's hearts, thrilled her delightfully. But she had not forgiven him for the paper target episode, wherein she had been pushed aside to make way for his skill. There were, moreover, plans that had been fermenting in her mind for many months--plans of which marriage should not be a part--and she answered him frankly:

She was looking down, unable to go farther without assistance; but he offered none, and they stood for several moments in absolute silence--for a quick spasm of fright had shot across his soul! The sublimity of her partial surrender, contingent only upon his transportation to a foreign battlefield, suddenly brought the war from three thousand miles away to his very door. But his next feeling was one of self-contempt, and squaring his shoulders with a jerk he said:

"I love your pluck! Then it's all settled."

"Oh, it isn't all settled by a great deal," she laughed; but, seeing his face, gasped in mock astonishment. "Heavens! Which is making you look so like a ghost--marriage or war?"

"They're quite synonymous," he replied, trying to match her banter. "May I speak to your illustrious father?"

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