She knew vaguely that his father had died and their money was gone, but beyond that she had no knowledge of him. They had drifted apart. He was not of her world, and gossip about him seldom came her way. He had long ago ceased to look at her when they happened to pa.s.s on the street. He doubtless had forgotten her, or thought she had forgotten him. Or, it might even be that he did not wish to presume upon an acquaintance begun when she was too young to have a choice of whom should be her friends. But the memory of that rose had never quite faded from her heart even though she had been but seven, and always she had looked after him when she chanced to see him on the street with a kind of admiration and wonder. Now suddenly she saw him in another light. The laugh was gone from his lips and the twinkle from his eyes. He looked as he had looked the day he fought Chuck Woodc.o.c.k for tying a string across the sidewalk and tripping up the little girls on the way to school. It came to her like a revelation that he was going forth now in just such a way to fight the world-foe. In a way he was going to fight for her. To make the world a safe place for girls such as she! All the terrible stories of Belgium flashed across her mind, and she was lifted on a great wave of grat.i.tude to this boy friend of her babyhood for going out to defend her!
All the rest of the straggling line of draft men were going out for the same purpose perhaps, but it did not occur to her that they were anything to her until she saw John Cameron. All those friends of her own world who were training for officers, they, too, were going to fight in the same way to defend the world, but she had not thought of it in that way before. It took a sight of John Cameron"s high bearing and serious face to bring the knowledge to her mind.
She thought no longer of trying to get away. She seemed held to the spot by a new insight into life. She could not take her eyes from the face of the young man. She forgot that she was staying, forgot that she was staring. She could no more control the swelling thoughts of horror that surged over her and took possession of her than she could have controlled a mob if it had suddenly swept down upon her.
The gates presently lifted silently to let the little procession pa.s.s over to her side of the tracks, and within a few short minutes the special train that was to bear the men away to camp came rattling up, laden with other victims of the chance that sent some men on ahead to be pioneers in the camps.
These were a noisy jolly bunch. Perhaps, having had their own sad partings they were only trying to brace themselves against the scenes of other partings through which they must pa.s.s all the way along the line.
They must be reminded of their own mothers and sisters and sweethearts.
Something of this Ruth Macdonald seemed to define to herself as, startled and annoyed by the clamor of the strangers in the midst of the sacredness of the moment, she turned to look at the crowding heads in the car windows and caught the eye of an irrepressible youth:
"Think of me over there!" he shouted, waving a flippant hand and twinkling his eyes at the beautiful girl in her car.
Another time Ruth would have resented such familiarity, but now something touched her spirit with an inexpressible pity, and she let a tiny ripple of a smile pa.s.s over her lovely face as her eyes traveled on down the platform in search of the tall form of John Cameron. In the moment of the oncoming train she had somehow lost sight of him. Ah! There he was stooping over a little white haired woman, taking her tenderly in his arms to kiss her. The girl"s eyes lingered on him. His whole att.i.tude was such a revelation of the man the rollicking boy had become. It seemed to pleasantly round out her thought of him.
The whistle sounded, the drafted men gave one last wringing hand-clasp, one last look, and sprang on board.
John Cameron was the last to board the train. He stood on the lower step of the last car as it began to move slowly. His hat was lifted, and he stood with slightly lifted chin and eyes that looked as if they had sounded the depths of all sadness and surrendered himself to whatever had been decreed. There was settled sorrow in all the lines of his fine face.
Ruth was startled by the change in it; by the look of the boy in the man.
Had the war done that for him just in one short summer? Had it done that for the thousands who were going to fight for her? And she was sitting in her luxurious car with a bundle of wool at her feet, and presuming to bear her part by mere knitting! Poor little useless woman that she was! A thing to send a man forth from everything he counted dear or wanted to do, into suffering and hardship--and _death_--perhaps! She shuddered as she watched his face with its strong uplifted look, and its unutterable sorrow. She had not thought he could look like that! Oh, he would be gay to-morrow, like the rest, of course, with his merry jest and his contagious grin, and making light of the serious business of war! He would not be the boy he used to be without the ability to do that. But she would never forget how he had looked in this farewell minute while he was gazing his last on the life of his boyhood and being borne away into a dubious future. She felt a hopelessly yearning, as if, had there been time, she would have liked to have told him how much she appreciated his doing this great deed for her and for all her sisters!
Has it ever been fully explained why the eyes of one person looking hard across a crowd will draw the eyes of another?
The train had slipped along ten feet or more and was gaining speed when John Cameron"s eyes met those of Ruth Macdonald, and her vivid speaking face flashed its message to his soul. A pleased wonder sprang into his eyes, a question as his glance lingered, held by the tumult in her face, and the unmistakable personality of her glance. Then his face lit up with its old smile, graver, oh, much! and more deferential than it used to be, with a certain courtliness in it that spoke of maturity of spirit. He lifted his hat a little higher and waved it just a trifle in recognition of her greeting, wondering in sudden confusion if he were really not mistaken after all and had perhaps been appropriating a farewell that belonged to someone else; then amazed and pleased at the flutter of her handkerchief in reply.
The train was moving rapidly now in the midst of a deep throaty cheer that sounded more like a sob, and still he stood on that bottom step with his hat lifted and let his eyes linger on the slender girlish figure in the car, with the morning sun glinting across her red-gold hair, and the beautiful soft rose color in her cheeks.
As the train swept past the little shelter shed he bethought himself and turned a farewell tender smile on the white-haired woman who stood watching him through a mist of tears. Then his eyes went back for one last glimpse of the girl; and so he flashed out of sight around the curve.
III
It had taken only a short time after all. The crowd drowned its cheer in one deep gasp of silence and broke up tearfully into little groups beginning to melt away at the sound of Michael ringing up the gates, and telling the cars and wagons to hurry that it was almost time for the up-train.
Ruth Macdonald started her car and tried to bring her senses back to their normal calm wondering what had happened to her and why there was such an inexpressible mingling of loss and pleasure in her heart.
The way at first was intricate with congestion of traffic and Ruth was obliged to go slowly. As the road cleared before her she was about to glide forward and make up for lost time. Suddenly a bewildered little woman with white hair darted in front of the car, hesitated, drew back, came on again. Ruth stopped the car shortly, much shaken with the swift vision of catastrophe, and the sudden recognition of the woman. It was the same one who had been with John Cameron.
"Oh, I"m so sorry I startled you!" she called pleasantly, leaning out of the car. "Won"t you get in, please, and let me take you home?"
The woman looked up and there were great tears in her eyes. It was plain why she had not seen where she was going.
"Thank you, no, I couldn"t!" she said with a choke in her voice and another blur of tears, "I--you see--I want to get away--I"ve been seeing off my boy!"
"I know!" said Ruth with quick sympathy, "I saw. And you want to get home quickly and cry. I feel that way myself. But you see I didn"t have anybody there and I"d like to do a little something just to be in it.
Won"t you please get in? You"ll get home sooner if I take you; and see!
We"re blocking the way!"
The woman cast a frightened glance about and a.s.sented:
"Of course. I didn"t realize!" she said climbing awkwardly in and sitting bolt upright as uncomfortable as could be in the luxurious car beside the girl. It was all too plain she did not wish to be there.
Ruth manoeuvred her car quickly out of the crowd and into a side street, gliding from there to the avenue. She did not speak until they had left the melting crowd well behind them. Then she turned timidly to the woman:
"You--are--his--_mother_?"
She spoke the words hesitatingly as if she feared to touch a wound. The woman"s eyes suddenly filled again and a curious little quiver came on the strong chin.
"Yes," she tried to say and smothered the word in her handkerchief pressed quickly to her lips in an effort to control them.
Ruth laid a cool little touch on the woman"s other hand that lay in her lap:
"Please forgive me!" she said, "I wasn"t sure. I know it must be awful,--cruel--for you!"
"He--is all I have left!" the woman breathed with a quick controlled gasp, "but, of course--it was--right that he should go!"
She set her lips more firmly and blinked off at the blur of pretty homes on her right without seeing any of them.
"He would have gone sooner, only he thought he ought not to leave me till he had to," she said with another proud little quiver in her voice, as if having once spoken she must go on and say more, "I kept telling him I would get on all right--but he always was so careful of me--ever since his father died!"
"Of course!" said Ruth tenderly turning her face away to struggle with a strange smarting sensation in her own eyes and throat. Then in a low voice she added:
"I knew him, you know. I used to go to the same school with him when I was a little bit of a girl."
The woman looked up with a quick searching glance and brushed the tears away firmly.
"Why, aren"t you Ruth Macdonald? _Miss_ Macdonald, I mean--excuse me! You live in the big house on the hill, don"t you?"
"Yes, I"m Ruth Macdonald. Please don"t call me Miss. I"m only nineteen and I still answer to my little girl name," Ruth answered with a charming smile.
The woman"s gaze softened.
"I didn"t know John knew you," she said speculatively. "He never mentioned----"
"Of course not!" said the girl antic.i.p.ating, "he wouldn"t. It was a long time ago when I was seven and I doubt if he remembers me any more. They took me out of the public school the next year and sent me to St. Mary"s for which I"ve never quite forgiven them, for I"m sure I should have got on much faster at the public school and I loved it. But I"ve not forgotten the good times I had there, and John was always good to the little girls. We all liked him. I haven"t seen him much lately, but I should think he would have grown to be just what you say he is. He looks that way."
Again the woman"s eyes searched her face, as if she questioned the sincerity of her words; then apparently satisfied she turned away with a sigh:
"I"d have liked him to know a girl like you," she said wistfully.
"Thank you!" said Ruth brightly, "that sounds like a real compliment.
Perhaps we shall know each other yet some day if fortune favors us. I"m quite sure he"s worth knowing."
"Oh, he is!" said the little mother, her tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g over again and flowing down her dismayed cheeks, "he"s quite worth the best society there is, but I haven"t been able to manage a lot of things for him. It hasn"t been always easy to get along since his father died. Something happened to our money. But anyway, he got through college!" with a flash of triumph in her eyes.
"Wasn"t that fine!" said Ruth with sparkling eyes, "I"m sure he"s worth a lot more than some of the fellows who have always had every whim gratified. Now, which street? You"ll have to tell me. I"m ashamed to say I don"t know this part of town very well. Isn"t it pretty down here? This house? What a wonderful clematis! I never saw such a wealth of bloom."