Joy in the Morning by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
page 65 of 204 (31%)
page 65 of 204 (31%)
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muscle. "I am too old to go on first call to army," said Rafael. "Zey
will not take me. Yes, and on second call. Maybe zird time. But if time come when army take me--I go. If I may kill four Germans I will be content," stated Rafael concisely. And his warrior forebears would have been proud of him as he stated it. My reflections were disturbed here by the American general at the next table. He was spoken to by his waiter and shot up and left the room, carrying, however, his napkin in his hand, so that I knew he was due to come back. A half sentence suggested a telephone. I watched the soldierly back with plenty of patriotic pride; this was the sort of warrior my country turned out now by tens of thousands. With that he returned, and as I looked up into his face, behold it was Fitzhugh. My chair went banging as I sprang toward him. "Jim!" And the general's calm dignity suddenly was the radiant grin of the boy who had played and gone to school and stolen apples with me for a long bright childhood--the boy lost sight of these last years of his in the army. "Dave!" he cried out. "Old Davy Cram!" And his arm went around my shoulder regardless of the public. "My word, but I'm glad!" he sputtered. And then: "Come and have dinner--finish having it. Come to our table." He slewed me about and presented me to the three others. In a minute I was installed, to the pride of my friend the head waiter, at military headquarters, next to Fitzhugh and the Frenchman. A campact résumé of personal history between Fitzhugh and myself over, I turned to the blue figure on my left hand, Colonel Raffré, of the French, army. On his broad chest hung thrilling bits of color, not only the bronze war cross, with its green watered ribbon striped with red, but the blood-red |
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