The Soldier of the Valley | Page 7

humor, now softened with sympathy, now glowed with
pity. Pity! The thought of it stirred me with anger. The justice of it
made me rage. She saw in the chair a thin, broken figure, a drawn
brown face, a wreck of a man. Yesterday--a soldier. To-day--a hero.
To-morrow--a crippled veteran, and after that a pensioner drifting fast
into a garrulous dotage. She, too, was looking into the future. She knew
what I had lost. She saw what I dreaded. Her eyes told me that. She did
not know what I had gained, for she came of a silly people whose blood
quickened only to the swing of a German hymn and who were stirred
more by the groans of a penitent sinner than the martial call of the
bugle.
So it came that I struggled to my crutches and broke rudely in on Perry
Thomas's peroration. I had gathered all my strength for a protest against
the future. The people of the valley were to know that their kindness
had cheered me, but of their pity I wanted none. I had played a small
part in a great game and in the playing was the reward. I had come
forth a bit bruised and battered, but there were other battles to be fought
in this world, where one could have the same fierce joy of the conflict;
and he was a poor soldier who lived only to be toted out on Decoration
days. I was glad to be home, but gladder still that I had gone. That was
what I told them. I looked right at the girl when I said it, and she lifted
her head and smiled. They heard how in the early spring in the meadow
by the mill-dam Tim and I had stopped our ploughs to draw lots and he
had lost. He had to stay at home, while I went out and saw the world at
its best, when it was awake to war and strife, and the mask that hid its
emotion was lifted. They heard a very simple story and a very short one,
for now that I came to recount it all my great adventure dwindled to a
few dreary facts. But as best I knew I told them of the routine of the
camp and of the endless drills in the long spring days down there at
Tampa before the army took to sea. I spoke of the sea and the strange
things we saw there as we steamed along--of the sharks that lolled in
our wake, of the great turtles that seemed to sun themselves on the
wave-crests, of the pelicans and the schools of flying fishes. Elmer
Spiker interrupted to inquire whether the turtles I had seen were
"black-legs, red-legs, or yaller-legs." I had not the remotest idea, and

said that I could not see how the question was relevant. He replied that
it was not, except that it would be of interest to some of those present to
learn that there were three distinct kinds of "tortles"--red-legs,
black-legs, and "yaller-legs." They were shipped to the city and all
became "tarripine." This annoyed me. Elmer is a great scholar, and it
was evident that he was simply airing his wisdom, and rather than give
him a second opportunity I tried to hurry to land; but Isaac Bolum
awoke and wanted to know if he had been dreaming.
"I thot I heard some one speakin' of flyin' fishes," he said.
[Illustration: Tim and I had stopped our ploughs to draw lots and he
had lost.]
It was reckless in me to mention these sea wonders, for now in defence
of my reputation for truthfulness, I had to prove their existence. The
fabric of my story seemed to hang on them. Elmer Spiker declared that
he had heard his grandfather tell of a flying sucker that inhabited the
deep hole below the bridge when he was a boy, but this was the same
grandfather who had strung six squirrels and a pigeon on one bullet in
the woods above the mill in his early manhood. There Elmer winked.
Isaac Bolum allowed that they might be trout that had trained
themselves in the use of wings, but he did not believe that any ordinary
fish such as a chub or a pike or a sunny would care to leave its natural
element to take up with the birds. Perry Thomas began to cough. That
cough is always like a snake's warning rattle. Before he had time to
strike, I blocked the discussion by promising that if the company
suspended judgment I would in the near future prove the accuracy of
my statements on flying fishes by the encyclopaedia. This promise met
with general approval, so I hurried over the sea to the dry