Read Ebook: Comrades by Phelps Elizabeth Stuart Smith Howard E Howard Everett Illustrator

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Ebook has 158 lines and 10295 words, and 4 pages

"You always had grit, Reuben, more'n most of as. You stood more, you was under fire more, you never was afraid of anything-- What's rheumatics? 'Tain't Antietam."

"Nor it ain't Bull Run," rejoined Reuben. He lifted his red nightcap from his head. "Let it ache!" he said. "It ain't Gettysburg."

"I don't feel to deserve it," muttered Reuben. "I swore to-day. Ask my wife."

"No, he didn't!" blazed Patience Oak. "He never said a thing but damn. He's getting tired, though," she added, under breath. "He ain't very well." She delicately brushed the foot of Jabez Trent with the toe of her slipper.

"I guess we'd better not set any longer," observed Jabez Trent. The three veterans rose like one soldier. Reuben felt that their visit had not been what he expected. But he could not deny that he was tired out; he wondered why. He beckoned to Jabez Trent, who, shaking and coughing, bent over him.

"You'll see the boys don't forget to decorate Tommy, won't you?" he asked, eagerly. Jabez could not hear much of this, but he got the word Tommy, and nodded.

The three old men saluted silently, and when Reuben had put on his nightcap he found that they had all gone. Only Patience was in the room, standing by the jonquils, in her blue gingham dress and white apron.

"Tired?" she asked, comfortably. "I've mixed you up an egg-nog. Think you could take it?"

"They didn't stay long," complained the old man. "It don't seem to amount to much, does it?"

"You've punched your pillows all to pudding-stones," observed Patience Oak. "Let me fix 'em a little."

"I won't be fussed over!" cried Reuben, angrily. He gave one of his pillows a pettish push, and it went half across the room. Patience picked it up without remark. Reuben Oak held out a contrite hand.

"Peter, come here!" he commanded. Patience, with her maternal smile, obeyed.

Patience's eyes filled. But she hid them on the pillow beside him--he did not know why. She put up one hand and stroked his cheek.

"Just as if I was a johnnyquil," said the old man. He laughed, and grew quiet, and slept. But Patience did not move. She was afraid of waking him. She sat crouched and crooked on the edge of the bed, uncomfortable and happy.

Out on the street, between the house and the carpenter's shop, the figures of the veterans bent against the perspective of young tobacco. They walked feebly. Old Mr. Succor shook his head:

"Looks like he'd never see another Decoration Day. He's some considerable sick--an' he ain't young."

"He's got grit, though," urged Jabez Trent.

"He's pretty old," sighed David Swing. "He's consider'ble older'n we be. He'd ought to be prepared for his summons any time at his age."

"I'd like to look at Reuben's crop as we go by," remarked the blind man. "He's lucky to have the shop 'n' the crop too."

The three turned aside to the field, where old Mr. Succor appraised the immature tobacco leaves with seeing fingers.

"And this here's a great town," echoed David Swing. "Look at the quota we sent--nigh a full company. And we had a great colonel," he added, proudly. "I calc'late he'd been major-general if it hadn't 'a' been for that infernal shell."

"Boys," said Jabez Trent, slowly, "Memorial Day's a great day. It's up to us to keep it that way-- Boys, we're all that's left of the Charles Darlington Post."

"That's a fact," observed the blind soldier, soberly.

"That's so," said the lame one, softly.

The three did not talk any more; they walked past the tobacco-field thoughtfully. Many persons carrying flowers passed or met them. These recognized the veterans with marked respect, and with some perplexity. What! Only old blind Mr. Succor? Just David Swing on his crutches, and Jabez Trent with the shaking palsy? Only those poor, familiar persons whom one saw every day, and did not think much about on any other day? Unregarded, unimportant, aging neighbors? These who had ceased to be useful, ceased to be interesting, who were not any longer of value to the town, or to the State, to their friends , or to themselves? Heroes? These plain, obscure old men?--Heroes?

So it befell that Patience Oak "decorated Tommy" for his father that Memorial Day. The year was 1909. The incident of which we have to tell occurred twelve months thereafter, in 1910. These, as I have gathered them, are the facts:

Time, to the old, takes an unnatural pace, and Reuben Oak felt that the year had sprinted him down the race-track of life; he was inclined to resent his eighty-second March birthday as a personal insult; but April cried over him, and May laughed at him, and he had acquired a certain grim reconciliation with the laws of fate by the time that the nation was summoned to remember its dead defenders upon their latest anniversary. This resignation was the easier because he found himself unexpectedly called upon to fill an extraordinary part in the drama and the pathos of the day.

He slept brokenly the night before, and waked early; it was scarcely five o'clock. But Patience, his wife, was already awake, lying quietly upon her pillow, with straight, still arms stretched down beside him. She was careful not to disturb him--she always was; she was so used to effacing herself for his sake that he had ceased to notice whether she did or not; he took her beautiful dedication to him as a matter of course; most husbands would, if they had its counterpart. In point of fact--and in saying this we express her altogether--Patience had the genius of love. Charming women, noble women, unselfish women may spend their lives in a man's company, making a tolerable success of marriage, yet lack this supreme gift of Heaven to womanhood, and never know it. Our defects we may recognize; our deficiencies we seldom do, and the love deficiency is the most hopeless of human limitations. Patience was endowed with love as a great poet is by song, or a musician by harmony, or an artist by color or form. She loved supremely, but she did not know that. She loved divinely, but her husband had never found it out. They were two plain people--a carpenter and his wife, plodding along the Connecticut valley industriously, with the ideals of their kind; to be true to their marriage vows, to be faithful to their children, to pay their debts, raise the tobacco, water the garden, drive the nails straight, and preserve the quinces. There were times when it occurred to Patience that she took more care of Reuben than Reuben did of her; but she dismissed the matter with a phrase common in her class, and covering for women most of the perplexity of married life: "You know what men are."

On the morning of which we speak, Reuben Oak had a blunt perception of the fact that it was kind in his wife to take such pains not to wake him till he got ready to begin the tremendous day before him; she always was considerate if he did not sleep well. He put down his hand and took hers with a sudden grasp, where it lay gentle and still beside him.

"Well, Peter," he said, kindly.

"Yes, dear," said Patience, instantly. "Feeling all right for to-day?"

"Fine," returned Reuben. "I don't know when I've felt so spry. I'll get right up 'n' dress."

"Would you mind staying where you are till I get your coffee heated?" asked Patience, eagerly. "You know how much stronger you always are if you wait for it. I'll have it on the heater in no time."

"I can't wait for coffee to-day," flashed Reuben. "I'm the best judge of what I need."

"Very well," said Patience, in a disappointed tone. For she had learned the final lesson of married life--not to oppose an obstinate man, for his own good. But she slipped into her wrapper and made the coffee, nevertheless. When she came back with it, Reuben was lying on the bed in his flannels, with a comforter over him; he looked pale, and held out his hand impatiently for the coffee.

His feverish eyes healed as he watched her moving about the room. He thought how young and pretty her neck was when she splashed the water on it.

"Goin' to wear your black dress?" he asked. "That's right. I'm glad you are. I'll get up pretty soon."

She brushed her thick hair with upraised, girlish arms, and got out her black serge dress and a white tie. He lay and watched her thoughtfully.

"Peter," he said, unexpectedly, "how long is it since we was married?"

"Forty-nine years," answered Patience, promptly. "Fifty, come next September."

"What a little creatur' you were, Peter--just a slip of a girl! And how you did take hold--Tommy and everything."

"I was 'most twenty," observed Patience, with dignity.

"You made a powerful good stepmother all the same," mused Reuben. "You did love Tommy, to beat all."

"I was fond of Tommy," answered Patience, quietly. "He was a nice little fellow."

"And then there was the baby, Peter. Pity we lost the baby! I guess you took that harder 'n I did, Peter."

Patience made no reply.

"She was so dreadful young, Peter. I can't seem to remember how she looked. Can you? Pity she didn't live! You'd 'a' liked a daughter round the house, wouldn't you, Peter? Say, Peter, we've gone through a good deal, haven't we--you 'n' me? The war 'n' all that--and the two children. But there's one thing, Peter--"

Patience came over to him quietly, and sat down on the side of the bed. She was half dressed, and her still beautiful arms went around him.

"You'll tire yourself all out thinking, Reuben. You won't be able to decorate anybody if you ain't careful."

"What I was goin' to say was this," persisted Reuben. "I've always had you, Peter. And you've had me. I don't count so much, but I'm powerful fond of you, Peter. You're all I've got. Seems as if I couldn't set enough by you, somehow or nuther."

The old man hid his face upon her soft neck.

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