“But your mother–-“
“Mother doesn’t know a thing.”
Flora wept mistily all through the ceremony, but Adele was composed enough for two.
When, scarcely a month later, Baldwin came to Sophy Decker, his face drawn and queer, Sophy knew.
“How much?” she said.
“Thirty thousand will cover it. If you’ve got more than that–-“
“I thought Oakley–-Adele said–-“
“He did, but he won’t any more, and this thing’s got to be met. It’s this damned war that’s done it. I’d have been all right. People got scared. They wanted their money. They wanted it in cash.”
“Speculating with it, were you?”
“Oh, well, a woman doesn’t understand these business deals.”
“No, naturally,” said Aunt Sophy, “a butterfly like me.”
“Sophy, for God’s sake don’t joke now. I tell you this will cover it, and everything will be all right. If I had anybody else to go to for the money I wouldn’t ask you. But you’ll get it back. You know that.”
Aunt Sophy got up, heavily, and went over to her desk. “It was for the children, anyway. They won’t need it now.”
He looked up at that. Something in her voice. “Who won’t? Why won’t they?”
“I don’t know what made me say that. I had a dream.”
“Eugene?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, we’re all nervous. Flora has dreams every night and presentiments every fifteen minutes. Now, look here, Sophy. About this money. You’ll never know how grateful I am. Flora doesn’t understand these things, but I can talk to you. It’s like this–-“
“I might as well be honest about it,” Sophy interrupted. “I’m doing it, not for you, but for Flora, and Della—and Eugene. Flora has lived such a sheltered life. I sometimes wonder if she ever really knew any of you. Her husband, or her children. I sometimes have the feeling that Della and Eugene are my children—were my children.”
When he came home that night Baldwin told his wife that old Soph was getting queer. “She talks about the children being hers,” he said.
“Oh, well, she’s awfully fond of them,” Flora explained. “And she’s lived her little, narrow life, with nothing to bother her but her hats and her house. She doesn’t know what it means to suffer as a mother suffers —poor Sophy.”
“Um,” Baldwin grunted.
When the official notification of Eugene’s death came from the War Department, Aunt Sophy was so calm it might have appeared that Flora had been right. She took to her bed now in earnest, did Flora. Sophy neglected everything to give comfort to the stricken two.
“How can you sit there like that!” Flora would rail. “How can you sit there like that! Even if you weren’t his mother, surely you must feel something.”
“It’s the way he died that comforts me,” said Aunt Sophy.
“What difference does that make!”
AMERICAN RED CROSS (Croix Rouge Americaine)
MY DEAR MRS. BALDWIN: I am sure you must have been officially notified by the U.S. War Dept. of the death of your son, Lieut. Eugene H. Baldwin. But I want to write you what I can of his last hours. I was with him much of that time as his nurse. I’m sure it must mean much to a mother to hear from a woman who was privileged to be with her boy at the last. Your son was brought to our hospital one night badly gassed from the fighting in the Argonne Forest. Ordinarily we do not receive gassed patients, as they are sent to a special hospital near here. But two nights before, the Germans wrecked that hospital, so many gassed patients have come to us. Your son was put in the officers’ ward, where the doctors who examined him told me there was absolutely no hope for him, as he had inhaled so much gas that it was only a matter of a few hours.
I could scarcely believe that a man so big and strong as he was could not pull through. The first bad attack he had, losing his breath and nearly choking, rather frightened him, although the doctor and I were both with him. He held my hand tightly in his, begging me not to leave him, and repeating, over and over, that it was good to have a woman near. He was propped high in bed and put his head on my shoulder while I fanned him until he breathed more easily. I stayed with him all that night, though I was not on duty. You see, his eyes also were badly burned. But before he died he was able to see very well. I stayed with him every minute of that night and have never seen a finer character than he showed during all that fight for life. He had several bad attacks that night and came through each one simply because of his great will power and fighting spirit. After each attack he would grip my hand and say, “Well, we made it that time, didn’t we, nurse?” Toward morning he asked me if he was going to die. I could not tell him the truth. He needed all his strength. I told him he had one chance in a thousand. He seemed to become very strong then, and sitting bolt upright in bed, he said: “Then I’ll fight for it!” We kept him alive for three days, and actually thought we had won when on the third day
…
But even in your sorrow you must be very proud to have been the mother of such a son… . I am a Wisconsin girl—Madison. When this is over and I come home, will you let me see you so that I may tell you more than I can possibly write? MARIAN KING
It was in March, six months later, that Marian King came. They had hoped for it, but never expected it. And she came. Four people were waiting in the living room of the big Baldwin house overlooking the river. Flora and her husband, Adele and Aunt Sophy. They sat, waiting. Now and then Adele would rise, nervously, and go to the window that faced the street. Flora was weeping with audible sniffs. Baldwin sat in his chair, frowning a little, a
