OCR Text |
Show iiiiifTiiiiiiiiiniiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiKmiiiiiKi11111111111 iititiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirtiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiii 1 Ramsey Milholland By BOOTH TARKINGTON i S Copyright by Doubiaday, Page & Company ZL o o THE BOY, FATHER OF THE MAN. Heres another of those Booth Tarkinston boy-and-slrl stories that set everyone laughing and llvlug over again the days of youth. Thi one is much like "Penrod and "Seventeen" and "The Oriole. It's different, too, in that It carries Ramsev Milholland and Dora locum lo-cum throu&h school and college life to early twturity In the World War. So it's serious as well as funny, and ifs one of Booth Tar-klngton's Tar-klngton's best of its kind. That s enough. O:, u CHAPTER I. When Johnnie comes marching home again. Hurrah! Hurrah! We'll give him a hearty welcome then, Hurrah! Hurrah! The men with cheers, ths boys with ahouts. The ladles tney will all turn out, And well all feel gay, when Johnnie comes marching home again! The old man and the little boy, his grandson, sat together In the shade of the big walnut tree In the front yard, watching the "Decoration Day Parade," Pa-rade," as it passed up the long street; and when the last of the veterans was out of sight the grandfather murmured mur-mured the words of the tune that came drifting back from the now distant band at the head of the procession. "Did you, Grandpa ?" the boy asked. ' "Did I what?" j "Did you all feel gay when the army got home?" 'i "It didn't get home all at once, precisely," pre-cisely," the grandfather explained. ' "When the war was over I suppose we . felt relieved, more than anything else." "You didn't feel so gay when the war was, though, I guess !" the boy ventured. "I guess we didn't." "Were you scared, Grandpa? Were you ever scared the Johnnies would win?" "No. We weren't ever afraid of that." "Weil, weren't you ever scared yourself, your-self, Grandpa? I mean when you were In a battle." "Oh, yes; I was." The old man laughed. "Scared aplenty!" "I don't see why," the boy said promptly. "I wouldn't be scared In a battle." "Wouldn't you?" " 'Course not 1 Grandpa, why don't you march In the Decoration Day parade? pa-rade? Wouldn't they let you?" "I'm not able to march any more. Voo short of breath and too shaky In the legs and too blind." "I wouldn't care," said the boy. -"I'd be In the parade anyway. If I was you. If I'd been In your place, Grandpa, and ' they'd let me be In that parade, I'd been right up by the band. Look, Grandpa ! Watch me, Grandpa ! This Is the way I'd be, Grandpa." He rose from the garden bench where they sat, and gave a complex Imitation of what had most appealed to him as the grandeurs of the procession, pro-cession, his prancing legs simulating those of the horse of the grand marshal, mar-shal, while his upper parts rendered the drums and bugles of the band, as well as the officers and privates of the militia company which had been a feature fea-ture of the parade. The only thing he left out was the detachment of veterans. 'Tutty-boom ! Putty-boom I Putty-oom-boom-boom !" he vociferated, as the drums and then as the bugles: "Ta, ta, ra, tara !" He addressed his restive legs : "Whoa, there, you ?sl Whltey! Gee! Haw! Git up!" Then, waving an Imaginnry sword : "Col-lumn "Col-lumn right! Fanvud mnrchl Halt! Carry harms!" He "cnrrled arms." ' 1 "Show-dler harms I" He "shouldered I1 arms," and returned to his seat. "That'd be me. Grandpa. That's the way I'd do." And as the grandfather nodded, seeming to agree, a thought recently dismissed returned to the (4nd of the composite procession and asked : "Well, why weren't you ever afraid the Johnnies would whip the Unions, Grandpa?" "Oh, we knew they couldn't." "I guess so." The little boy laughed disdainfully, thinking his question satisfactorily sat-isfactorily answered. "I guess those ole Johnnies couldn't whipped a flea ! They didn't know how to tight any at nil r?.n,wl..n r)'t "Oh, yes, they did!" "What?" The boy was astounded.' "Weren't they all Just reg'lar ole cowards, cow-ards, Grandpa?" "No," said the grandfather. "They were pretty flue soldiers." "They were? Well, they ran away whenever you began shootln' at 'em, didn't they?" a "Sometime they did, but most times they didn't. Sometimes they fought S like wildcat and sometime we were the ones tr, ran away." "Dut the Johnnies wens tiad men, weren't they Grandpa?" "No." The Soy's forehead, customarily vacant, va-cant, showa 1 so'ne little vertical shadows, produced by a sUnggle to think. "Well, tut ' be began slowly. "Listen, Grandpa, Wn here! You f snld--you said you nt-r got scared ,j Die o'e Johnnies were go!n' to win." "They did win pretty often" said i iiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiii iniiniiiiiimiiiiitMMii the grandfather. "They won a good many battles." "I mean, you said you never got scared they'd win the war." "No, we were never afraid of that." "Well, but if they were good men and fought like wildcats, Grandpa, and kep' winning battles and everything, every-thing, how could that be? How could you help bein' scared they'd win the war?" The grandfather's feeble eyes twinkled twin-kled brightly. "Why, we knew they couldn't, Ramsey." At this, the little vertical shadows on Ramsey's forehead became more pronounced, for he had succeeded in . thinking. "Well, they didn't know they couldn't, did they?" he argued. "They thought they were goln' to win, didn't they?" "Yes ; I guess they did. But you see they were wrong." "Well, but " Ramsey struggled. "Listen ! Listen here, Grandpa ! Well, anyway, If they never got scared we'd win, and nobody got scared they'd win well, I don't see " "You don't see what?" But Ramsey found himself unable to continue his concentration. "Oh, nothln' much," he murmured. "I see." And his grandfather laughed again. "You mean : If the Johnnies felt just as sure of winning the war as we did and kept winning battles, why shouldn't we ever have had any doubts we were going to win? That's it, Isn't- It?" "I guess so, Grandpa." "Well, I think it was mostly because we were certain that we were right." "I see," said Ramsey. "The Johnnies knew they were on the side of the "I Wouldn't Care," Said the Boy. "I'd, Bs In the Parade Anyway, if I Was You." devil."- But at this, the grandfather's laugh was louder than It had been before, be-fore, and Ramsey looked hurt. "Well, you can laugh If you want to !" he objected In an aggrieved voice. "Anyway, "Any-way, the Sunday school sup'lntendent told us when people knew they were on the devil's side they always " "I dore say, I dare say," the old man Interrupted, a little Impatiently. "But In this world mighty few people think they're on the devil's side, Ramsey. The South thought the devil was on our side, you see." "Well, that kind o' mixes It all up more'n ever." "Suppose you look at it this way: The South was fighting for what It believed to be its right to he a country coun-try by Itself ; hut we were fighting for 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and Inseparable.' There's the reason rea-son we had the certain knowledge that we were going to win the war. How plain and simple It Is!" Ramsey didn't think so. He hnd begun be-gun to feel hored by -the conversation, and to undergo the oppression he usually us-ually suffered In school. The earnest old voice of the veteran was only a sound in the boy's ears. "Boom " The veterans had begun to fire their cannon on the crest of the low hill, out at the cemetery ; and from a little way down the street came the rat-a-tat of a toy drum and sounds of a fife played execrably. A file of children chil-dren In cocked hats made of newspapers newspa-pers came marching importantly up the sidewalk under the maple shade trees ; and in advance, upon a velocipede, veloci-pede, rode a tin-swor-.d personage, shrieking incessant commands but not concerning himself with whether or not any military obedience was thereby there-by obtained. Here was a revivifying effect upon young Ramsey; his sluggard slug-gard eyelids opened electrically; he lea-ed to his feet and. abandoning his grandfather without preface or apology, apolo-gy, sped across the lawn and out of the gate, charging headlong upon the commander of the company. "You get off that 'locipede, Wesley Bender!' he bellowed. "You gimme that sword ! What rights' you got to go beln' captain o' my army. I'd like to know ! Who got up this army, in the first place, I'd lite to know! I did, 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111; myself, yesterd'y afternoon, and you get back in line or I won't let you b'long to It at all !" The pretender succumbed ; he Instantly In-stantly dismounted, being out-shouted and overawed. On foot he took his place In the ranks, while Ramsey became be-came sternly vociferous. "In-tention, company ! Farwud march ! Col-lumn right! Rlght-showdler harms ! Halt! Far-wud march. Carry harms " The army went trudging away under un-der the continuous but unheeded fUe of orders, and presently disappeared round a corner, leaving the veteran chuckling feebly under his walnut tree and alone with the empty street. All trace of what he had said seemed to have been wiped from the grandson's mind ; but memory has curious ways. Ramsey had understood not a fifth nor a tenth of his grandfather's talk, and already he had "forgotten" all of It yet not only were there many, maw times In the boy's later life when, without ascertainable cause, he would remember words and sentences spoken by the grandfather, though the listener, lis-tener, half-drowsily, had heara but the sound of an old, enrnest voice and even the veteran's meaning finally took on a greater definlteness till it became, In the grandson's thoughts, something clear and bright and beautl ful that he knew without being just sure where or how he had learned I' CHAPTER II Ramsey Milholland sat miserably Id school, his conscious being consisting principally of a dull hate. Torpor was n little dispersed during a fifteen-minute fifteen-minute interval of "Music," when he and all the other pupils In the large room of the "Five B. Grade sang repeatedly re-peatedly fractions of what they enunciated enun-ciated as "The Star Span-guh-hulled Banner"; but afterward he relapse1 into the low spirits and animosity nat ural to anybody during enforced confinement con-finement under Instruction. No alleviation allevia-tion was accomplished by an invader's temporary usurpation of the teacher's platform, a brisk and urisympathetlcal-ly urisympathetlcal-ly cheerful young woman mounting thereon to "teach German." For a long time mathematics and German had been about equally repulsive re-pulsive to Ramsey, who found himself daily In the compulsory presence of both; but he was gradually coming to regard German with the greater horror, hor-ror, because, after months of patient mental resistance, he at last began to comprehend that the German language has sixteen special and particular ways of using the Gernxin article corresponding corre-sponding to that flexible bit of a word so easily managed In English the. What In. the world was the use of having sixteen ways of doing a thing that could just as well be done In ono? If the Germans hnd contented thein selves with Insisting upon sixteen useless use-less variations for Infrequent words, sucn as mppoporainns, lor iiisiancu, , Ramsey might have thought the affair unreasonable but not necessarily vicious vi-cious It would be eaRy enough to avoid talking about a hippopotamus if he ever had to go to Germany. But the fact that the Germans picked out a and the and many other little words in use all the time, and gave every one of them sixteen forms, and expected Ramsey Milholland to learn this dizzying dizzy-ing uselessness down to the last crotchety detnil, with "When to employ Which" ns n nausea to prepare for the final convulsion when one didn't use Which, because It was an "Exception" there was a fashion of ranking easy matters hard that was merely hellish. The teacher was strict but enthusiastic; enthu-siastic; she told the children, over and over, that the German was a beautiful language, and her face always had a glow when she said this. At susih times the children looked patient; they supposed it must be so, bra'vse she was an adult and their teacher; and they beljeved her with the same planner plan-ner of believing which those of them who went to Sunday school used there when the Sunday school teachers were pushed Into explanation of various matters set forth in the Old Testament, Testa-ment, or gave reckless descriptions ot heaven. That is to say, the children did not challenge or deny; already they had been driven into habits ol resignation and were passing out ot the age when childhood Is able to reject re-ject adult nonsense. Ramsey Milholland did rrc know whether the English language was beautiful or not; he never though1 about It. Moreover, though his deepet Inwards hated "German." he liked hif German teacher, and It was pleasant to look at her when that glow camf upon her face. p " You bet your life I hate her. ' Teacher' Pet,' that's what I call her." (TO BE CONTINUED.) |