The boy started. "My mother? Oh, my mother, she went with me to the recruiting office and saw me take the oath. She is satisfied now."For some moments the girls stood silent, unable to find their voices. Then Jane said, her eyes glowing with a deep inner light, "Mr. Kellerman, I am proud of you.""Thank you, Miss Brown; it does me good to hear you say that. But you have always been good to me.""And I want you to come and see me before you go," said Jane as she gave him her hand. "Now will you take us out through the crowd?
We must get along."
"Certainly, Miss Brown. Just come with me." With a fine, soldierly tread the young Jew led them through the crowd and put them on their way. He did not shake hands with them as he said good-bye, but gave them instead a military salute, of which he was apparently distinctly proud.
"Tell me, Jane," said Ethel, as they set off down the street, "am Iawake? Is that little Kellerman, the greasy little Jew whom we used to think such a beast?""Isn't he splendid?" said Jane. "Poor little Kellerman! You know, Ethel, he had not one girl friend in college? I am sorry now we were not better to him."The streets were full of people walking hurriedly or gathered here and there in groups, all with grave, solemn faces. In front of The Times office a huge concourse stood before the bulletin boards reading the latest despatches. These were ominous enough: "The Germans Still Battering Liege Forts--Kaiser's Army Nearing Brussels--Four Millions of Men Marching on France--Russia Hastening Her Mobilisation--Kitchener Calls for One Hundred Thousand Men--Canada Will Send Expeditionary Force of Twenty-five Thousand Men--Camp at Valcartier Nearly Ready--Parliament Assembles Thursday."Men read the bulletins and talked quietly to each other. They had not yet reached clearness in their thinking as to how this dread thing had fallen upon their country so far from the storm centre, so remote in all vital relations. There was no cheering--the cheering days came later--no ebullient emotion, but the tightening of lip and jaw in their stern, set faces was a sufficient index of the tensity of feeling. Canadians were thinking things out, thinking keenly and swiftly, for in the atmosphere and actuality of war mental processes are carried on at high pressure.
As the girls stood at the corner of Portage Avenue and Main waiting for a crossing, an auto held up in the traffic drew close to their side.
"Hello, Ethel! Won't you get in?" said a voice at their ear.
"Hello, Lloyd! Hello, Helen!" cried Ethel. "We will, most certainly. Are you joying, or what?""Both," said Lloyd Rushbrooke, who was at the wheel. "Helen wanted to see the soldiers. She is interested in the Ninetieth but he wasn't there and I am just taking her about.""We saw the Ninetieth and the Kilties too," said Ethel. "Oh, they are fine! Oh, Helen, whom do you think we saw in the Ninetieth?
You will never guess--Heinrich Kellerman."
"Good Lord! That greasy little Sheeney?" exclaimed Rushbrooke.
"Look out, Lloyd. He's Jane's friend," said Ethel.
Lloyd laughed uproariously at the joke. "And you say the little Yid was in the Ninetieth? Well, what is the Ninetieth coming to?""Lloyd, you mustn't say a word against Mr. Kellerman," said Jane.
"I think he is a real man."
"Oh, come, Jane. That little Hebrew Shyster? Why, he does not wash more than once a year!""I don't care if he never washes at all. I won't have you speak of him that way," said Jane. "I mean it. He is a friend of mine.""And of mine, too," said Ethel, "since to-night. Why, he gave me thrills up in the armoury as he told us why he joined up.""One ten per, eh?" said Lloyd.
"Shall I tell him?" said Ethel.
"No, you will not," said Jane decidedly. "Lloyd would not understand.""Oh, I say, Jane, don't spike a fellow like that. I am just joking.""I won't have you joke in that way about Mr. Kellerman, at least, not to me." Few of her college mates had ever seen Jane angry.
They all considered her the personification of even-tempered serenity.
"If you take it that way, of course I apologise," said Lloyd.
"Now listen to me, Lloyd," said Jane. "I am going to tell you why he joined up." And in tones thrilling with the intensity of her emotion and finally breaking, she recounted Kellerman's story.
"And that is why he is going to the war, and I am proud of him,"she added.
"Splendid!" cried Helen Brookes. "You are in the Ninetieth, too, Lloyd, aren't you?""Yes," said Lloyd. "At least, I was. I have not gone much lately.
I have not had time for the military stuff, so I canned it.""And we saw Pat Scallons and Ted Tuttle in the Ninetieth, too, and Ramsay Dunn--oh, he did look fine in his uniform--and Frank Smart--he is going if he can," said Ethel. "I wonder what his mother will do. He is the only son, you know.""Well, if you ask me, I think that is rot. It is not right for Smart. There are lots of fellows who can go," said Lloyd in quite an angry tone. "Why, they say they have nearly got the twenty-five thousand already.""My, I would like to be in the first twenty-five thousand if I were a man," said Ethel. "There is something fine in that. Wouldn't you, Jane?""I am not a man," said Jane shortly.
