The Amazing Interlude | Page 7

photograph turned to the wall. Under her calm exterior a little flame of
rebellion was burning in her. Harvey's perpetual "we," his attitude
toward the war, and Mabel's letter, with what it opened before her, had
set the match to something in Sara Lee she did not recognize--a strain
of the adventurer, a throw-back to some wandering ancestor perhaps.
But more than anything it had set fire to the something maternal that is
in all good women.
Yet, had Aunt Harriet not come in just then, the flame might have died.
And had it died a certain small page of the history of this war would
never have been written.
Aunt Harriet came in hesitatingly. She wore a black wrapper, and her
face, with her hair drawn back for the night, looked tight and old.
"Harvey gone?" she asked.
"Yes."
"I thought I'd better come in. There's something--I can tell you in the
morning if you're tired."
"I'm not tired," said Sara Lee.
Aunt Harriet sat down miserably on a chair.

"I've had a letter from Jennie," she stated. "The girl's gone, and the
children have whooping cough. She'd like me to come right away."
"To do the maid's work!" said Sara Lee indignantly. "You mustn't do it,
that's all! She can get somebody."
But Aunt Harriet was firm. She was not a fair-weather friend, and since
Jennie was good enough to offer her a home she felt she ought to go at
once.
"You'll have to get married right away," she finished. "Goodness knows
it's time enough! For two years Harvey has been barking like a
watchdog in front of the house and keeping every other young man
away."
Sara Lee smiled.
"He's only been lying on the doormat, Aunt Harriet," she observed. "I
don't believe he knows how to bark."
"Oh, he's mild enough. He may change after marriage. Some do. But,"
she added hastily, "he'll be a good husband. He's that sort."
Suddenly something that had been taking shape in Sara Lee's small
head, quite unknown to her, developed identity and speech.
"But I'm not going to marry him just yet," she said.
Aunt Harriet's eyes fell on the photograph with its face to the wall, and
she started.
"You haven't quarreled with him, have you?"
"No, of course not! I have something else I want to do first. That's all.
Aunt Harriet, I want to go to France."
Aunt Harriet began to tremble, and Sara Lee went over and put her
young arms about her.

"Don't look like that," she said. "It's only for a little while. I've got to go.
I just have to, that's all!"
"Go how?" demanded Aunt Harriet.
"I don't know. I'll find some way. I've had a letter from Mabel. Things
are awful over there."
"And how will you help them?" Her face worked nervously. "Is it
going to help for you to be shot? Or carried off by the Germans?" The
atrocity stories were all that Aunt Harriet knew of the war, and all she
could think of now. "You'll come back with your hands cut off."
Sara Lee straightened and looked out where between the white curtains
the spire of the Methodist Church marked the east.
"I'm going," she said. And she stood there, already poised for flight.
There was no sleep in the little house that night. Sara Lee could hear
the older woman moving about in her lonely bed, where the spring still
sagged from Uncle James' heavy form, and at last she went in and crept
in beside her. Toward morning Aunt Harriet slept, with the girl's arm
across her; and then Sara Lee went back to her room and tried to plan.
She had a little money, and she had heard that living was cheap abroad.
She could get across then, and perhaps keep herself. But she must do
more than that, to justify her going. She must get money, and then
decide how the money was to be spent. If she could only talk it over
with Uncle James! Or, with Harvey. Harvey knew about business and
money.
But she dared not go to Harvey. She was terribly frightened when she
even thought of him. There was no hope of making him understand;
and no chance of reasoning with him, because, to be frank, she had no
reasons. She had only instinct--instinct and a great tenderness toward
suffering. No, obviously Harvey must not know until everything was
arranged.

That morning the Methodist Church packed a barrel for the Belgians.
There was a real rite of placing in it Mrs. Augustus Gregory's old
sealskin coat, now a light brown and badly worn, but for years the only
one in the neighborhood. Various familiar articles appeared, to be
thrust into darkness, only to emerge in surroundings never dreamed of