Many other conventions I saw die by the way as the war progressed. Then America came in.
There is a temptation to talk about America in the war, but, after all, that has no bearing on my story. Soon after the United States entered, American men and women began to arrive in Europe in great numbers.
I met them everywhere; sight-seeing, in offices, at universities, at emba.s.sies and consulates. I met them and loved them and suffered for them.
I was proud of something they brought to France that France needed, and I have no doubt that many of them took back to America something from France that we need.
For pure mental quality and courage, no people on earth could match what the American girls took to France. It was the finest stuff in the world. They knew how to meet hardship without grumbling. They knew how to run a kitchen and see that hungry men were fed. They knew how to nurse, to run telephones, automobiles--anything that needed to be done.
Some failed and fell by the wayside, but they were the smallest possible percentage.
Those American girls knew how to do everything--almost everything.
Two wonderful girls, one who ran a telephone for the army and another in the "Y," both from the Middle West, were at headquarters the day the King and Queen of the Belgians arrived. With others they were sent to serve tea, and they served it. The "Y" girl, taking a young captain whose presence made her eyes glisten to her Majesty, said:
"Captain Blank, meet the queen."
And the queen, holding out her hand, and never batting an eye to show that all the conventions had been thrown to the winds, said:
"Captain, I am very happy to meet you."
They served tea--served it to the king, the queen, the general of the American army, and other important people. There was cake besides tea, and it was not easy to drink tea and eat cake standing. The telephone girl insisted that General Pershing must sit down. The king was standing, and of course, General Pershing continued to do the same.
"Will you sit down?" said another girl to the king. "There are plenty of chairs."
That girl had done her job in France--a job of which many a man might have been proud--and on her left breast she wore a military medal for valor. The king touched the medal, smiled at her, and said he was glad there were plenty of chairs, for he knew places where there were not.
But General Pershing and his cake still bothered the little Illinois girl, who went back at him again and asked him to sit down and enjoy his cake. The king indicated to the general to be seated.
No one but General Pershing would have known what to do between the rule to stand when a king stands and the rule to obey the order of the king.
He gracefully placed his plate on the side of a table, half seated himself on it, which was a compromise, and went on enjoying himself.
The king sat down.
If any one had told that girl the sacredness of the convention she had ignored, she would have suffered as keenly as I had suffered in my youth. It was such a simple thing to learn; yet who in the middle of a war would think of stopping to run a cla.s.s in etiquette? The point is that any girl capable of crossing half the world to do a big job and a hard one in a foreign land should have been given the opportunity to learn the rules of social intercourse.
I saw some American girls and men on official occasions at private houses and at official functions. They were clever, attractive, fascinating; but when they came to the end of their visit, they rose to go, and then stood talking, talking, talking. They did not know exactly how to get away. They did not want to be abrupt nor appear to be glad to leave.
It would have been so simple for some one to say to them: "One of the first rules in social life is to get up and go when you are at the end of your visit."
I was in Paris when Marshal Joffre gave the American Amba.s.sador, Mr.
Sharp, the gold oak leaves as a token of France"s veneration for America. There were young girls around us who did not hesitate to comment on everybody there. One little New Jersey girl insisted rather audibly that Clemenceau looked like the old watchman on their block; and a boy, a young officer, complained that General Foch "had not won as many decorations as General Bliss and General Pershing." Some youngsters asked high officers for souvenirs. Many French people perhaps did worse, but it hurt me to see even a few of our own splendid young people guilty of such crudities, because our American youth is so fine at heart.
When the great artist Rodin died, I went to the public ceremony held in his memory. Suddenly I realized that America and France each had something left that war had not destroyed. A young American art student, who had given up his career for his uniform, and was invalided back in Paris minus an arm, stood very near me. As he turned to Colonel House I heard him say:
"Rodin"s going is another battle lost."
It was typical of the American quality of which we have cause to boast--the fineness of heart that is in our young people.
The day of the armistice in France, those of us who are older stood looking on and realizing that all cla.s.s distinctions, all race, age, and pursuits, had been wiped off the map. People were just people. There was a complete abandon. I am not a young woman, but I was caught up by the fury of the crowd, and swept along singing, laughing, weeping.
Young soldiers pa.s.sing would reach out to touch my hand, sometimes to kiss me.
That night I believed that the war had broken down many of our barriers; that all foolish customs had died; that the terrific price paid in human blood and human suffering had at least left a world honest with itself, simple and ready for good comradeship; that men were measured by manliness and women by ideals. It was a part of the armistice day fervor, but I believed it.
And then I came home and went to Newport.
V.
Just before I came home to America in the Spring of 1919, I went to Ess.e.x for a week-end in one of those splendid old estates which are the pride of England.
It was not my first visit, but I was awed anew by the immensity of the place, its culture and wealth which seemed to have existed always, its aged power and pride. Whole lives had been woven into its window curtains and priceless rugs; centuries of art lived in the great tapestries; successive generations of great artists had painted the ancestors of the present owner.
All three sons of that house went into the war. One never returned from Egypt, another is buried in Flanders. Only the youngest returned.
At first glance the smooth life seemed unchanged in the proud old house.
But before sundown of my first day there, I knew that life had put its acid test to the shield and proved it pure gold.
War taxes had fallen heavily on the estate and it was to be leased to an American. Until then, the castle was a home to less fortunate buddies of the owner"s sons.
But these were not the tests I mean, neither these nor the courage and the poise of that family in the face of their terrible loss, nor their effort to make every one happy and comfortable.
It was an incident at tea time that opened my eyes. The youngest son, now the only son, came in from a cross-country tramp and brought with him a pleasant faced young woman whom he introduced as "one of my pals in the war."
That was enough. Lady R. greeted her as one of the royal blood. The girl was the daughter of a Manchester plumber. She had done her bit, and it had been a hard bit, in the war, and now she was stenographer in a near-by village. Later in the afternoon the story came out. She had been clerk in the Q. M. corps and after her brother"s death she asked for service near the front, something hard. She got it. The mules in the supply and ammunition trains must be fed and it was her job to get hay to a certain division. The girl had ten motor trucks to handle and twenty men, three of them noncommissioned officers.
After four days, during which trucks had disappeared and mules gone unfed, she asked the colonel for the rank of first sergeant, with only enlisted men under her.
Her first official orders were: All trucks must stay together. If one breaks down, the others will stop and help.
The second day of her new command, she met our young host, who needed a truck to move supplies and tried to commandeer one of hers. When she refused, he ordered her. He was a captain.
"I am under orders to get those ten loads of hay to the mules," was her reply.
"What will you do if I just take one of them?" asked the captain.
"You won"t," said the girl confidently.
"I must get a truck," he insisted. "What can you do about it if I take one of yours?"
"England needs men," she answered. "But if you made it necessary I"d have to shoot you. If the mules are n"t fed, you and other men can"t fight. If you were fit to be a captain, you"d know that."
The young captain told the story himself and his family enjoyed it, evidently admiring the Manchester la.s.sie, who sat there as red as a poppy. They did not bend to the plumber"s daughter, nor seem to try to lift her to the altars of their ancient hall.
Every one met on new ground, a ground where human beings had faced death together. It was sign of a new fellowship, too deep and fine for even a fish knife to sever. There was no consciousness of ancient cla.s.s.
There was only to-day and to-morrow.