A House Party with the Tucker Twins
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The captain had determined not to leave the ship until he was sure there was no chance of saving it. The chief engineer was to stay with him and several sailors volunteered. It so happened that they were able to get into port on their own steam and we might have stayed safely on board, but of course the chances were that she would sink and it was deemed wiser for us to take to the boats.
I wish all of you might have seen Father. He was very calm and brave after the first shock was over. He was not strong enough to help much but he was willing to help, and when the men crowded into the boats leaving women shrieking for places, he swore with almost as much fervor as George Massie himself. Do you know, Page, I know it sounds silly, but I believe I love my father more and am closer to him since I know he can swear a little? He swore to some purpose, too, as he called the selfish men such terrible names that two of them were actually abashed and got out of the first boat to give their places to two women.
To make the scene more dismal it had begun to rain, such a cold, penetrating rain! Poor little Winnie clung to me and I could hear her praying: "Please God, save Mamma, and Papa, and me, and Miss Pore, and her papa, too, and the giant." She always called George the giant. "Don't let us get drownded dead!"
We got off at last! Winnie and her mother and father were in the boat with us. That was something George Massie managed. He saw that the father, Mr. Trask, was a good, reliable man and could help with the boat, and he also felt that Mrs. Trask and Winnie would need me, which they did. There were five other men in the boat with us and one other woman: a nice old Irish chambermaid, who never stopped praying a single moment until we were safe on the high seas in our tiny boat with the waves dashing all around us and the rain pouring on us.
I felt much safer on the steamer, although when we left her she had listed until her decks were at an angle of forty-five degrees. Of course the wireless had been busy sending appeals for help but we were three hours getting any. Mrs. Trask was very ill and had to lie in the bottom of the boat, where her husband and Father made her as comfortable as possible. Winnie sat in my lap and I wrapped her in a great rug that George had thrown around me. We kept each other warm under the rug and gave each other courage, too.
The vessel that picked us up was not very gracious about it. They had picked up so many shipwrecked persons since the war began that it was an old story to them and not at all interesting. It was a fishing smack and smelled worse than anything I have ever imagined in the way of odors. Poor Mrs. Trask actually fainted again from the stench of fish offal.
True to the captain's promise, we did land sometime during the night, but we were not safely in bed as he had hoped, but propped up in the foul little cabin of the fishing smack trying to choke down some vile black coffee that one of the men, not so hardened to shipwrecks as the rest, had humanely concocted for us.
This is about all, dear Page! We got to bed when we reached Liverpool and stayed there for twenty-four hours. I kept Winnie with me, thereby saving the poor little thing the agony of seeing her mother die. Poor Mrs. Trask passed away the day after we landed. She was not strong enough to stand the shock and exposure. Mr. Trask is an Englishman and was going home to enlist and leave his wife and child with his own people. His wife thought it right but was evidently in the deepest misery over his decision. Maybe she was not sorry to die. I am so sorry for him and for the dear little girl. She is to come to Grantley Grange to visit me soon.
I can never tell you how splendid George Massie was. He was so brave and so determined. I did not dream he could command men as he did. He says it is football training that made him know what to do and how to do it. He is going to France next week to join the Red Cross as a stretcher bearer, I think. I shall miss him ever so much but know it is right for him to help if he can. Service is in the air here in England. There is no more talk of who you are or what you own or what your ancestors have done. It is: What can you do? Then do it!
It is a tremendous experience to be in the midst of this war. No one talks anything but war. There are no entertainments of any sort except the theatres. I believe they keep them open to cheer up the people. The fields are full of women; the factories are kept up by them; the trams and busses are run by them, – in fact they do anything and everything that men did before the war.
You remember, do you not, how I was so afraid my clothes would look poor and mean and out of style? Well, on the contrary, for once in my life, I am better dressed than the persons with whom I come in contact. I am really ashamed to be so much better dressed than the other girls. It seems so frivolous of me. I know you can't help smiling to think of what the others' clothes must be.
I am writing to my dear Tuckers, too, and if you read their letter and they read yours you can piece together what my life here is. Please send them on to Mary Flannagan when you have finished reading them. I have not time to write another long letter just now.
Besides singing to the soldiers, I am to teach music to the children in Father's school. You can readily see how busy I am to be.
I shall never cease to miss my dear friends in Virginia. Some day I hope to come back to America, but in the meantime I am going to do my bit here in England. Please write to me!
Your devoted friend,Annie Pore.CHAPTER XXI
A LETTER FROM GEORGE MASSIE TO PAGE ALLISON
Paris, France.Poste Restante.My dear Page:
I left England last week after having stopped with the Pores at Grantley Grange for ten days or so. Say, Page, the old one ain't half bad! If you could have heard him swear when the beasts crowded in the life-boats ahead of the women, you would have forgot the grouch we had on about the way he has always done Annie. Say, that man can swear! I wonder where he has kept it all these years.
Of course, if a fellow ever is going to swear, it will be at a time like that, and if he doesn't swear some, it is because he is dumb. It is the kind of time when some women pray and some weep and most men swear. They don't mean anything, but it is just a kind of safety valve. Annie says I swore like a trooper, but I wasn't conscious of it at all. It just popped out of me. You see I had to intimidate the men who were behaving like cads, and the only way I knew how to do it was to swear, unless it was to biff them one with the oars, and I did not want to do that except as a last resort. The swearing worked.
It was a very terrible experience and one I hope never to have to undergo again. It was not only terrible to think that all of those people might be at the bottom of the ocean in a short while, but it was almost worse to see the way people can be so scared that they think only of themselves. I reckon a fellow ought not to blame them. It seemed just blind animal instinct for self-preservation. My Annie was a trump. She was as calm and quiet as though shipwrecks had been an every-day experience with her. She looked out for a little child and its sick mother and helped people and quieted women and men, and after we had been afloat in our life-boat for hours and it was cold and rainy and the poor sick woman and an old Irish chambermaid began to despair and the kid began to cry, what should my Annie do but begin to sing "Abide With Me." I have never heard her sing better than she did out in the middle of that dirty sea. It did all of us good, and before you knew it, a little fishing smack almost ran us down in the darkness and then had the decency to stop and haul us aboard.
I reckon you think I'm pretty gaully to be saying "my Annie" so glibly. She's not really my Annie but she is going to be if I can make good. Of course I know she is too young to make her give an answer to me yet, but this war is going to age all of us, and when it is over I'll be a steady old man with white whiskers, and if Annie likes 'em, I'm going to get her answer then. I don't want to tie her up but leave her free. She might see a handsome Johnny that will put crimps in my plans and I want her to take him if she likes him, but I tell you, Page, I'm going to pray every day and all day from now until the war is over that she will like me best. The old man likes me. It seems I earned his undying gratitude by waiting on him when he was seasick and the doctor on board had made light of his ailment. I made out he was sick unto death and worked my fool fat self to a shadow fetching and carrying for him. Then when the explosion came and I did my best to keep order, he kind of cottoned to me more. I believe when I come back from the wars and beg an answer from Annie that His Nibs will be willing.
He is much more attractive in his English setting. He really isn't half bad. His sisters are making a lot over Annie and now he is kind of getting stuck on her himself. 'Tain't so bad to be a woman in England now. Folks are thinking a good deal of women, and I tell you they should do so. Annie says he has always been sore that she was not a boy. Looks as though he had a hunch that he might inherit the title some day. I call him the old man right to his face, as somehow I can't school myself to say Sir Arthur. It is too story booky for me.
I am here in France waiting to be sent out with the Red Cross. I may drive an ambulance and I may just be a stretcher bearer. I will do whatever they see fit to put me to doing. There is plenty to do, they tell me, and they welcome every American who comes over with joy and gratitude. I wish we were in it as a nation. I believe we will end there, and if we do, I tell you someone else can drive the ambulance, as I mean to get in the game without a red cross on my sleeve.
You don't know what I feel towards all of you girls, all of Annie's friends. I have lived to bless the day that I met you, although on that day I did anything but bless it. You remember how you bundled me up in the soiled clothes ready to send me to the laundry? I'll never forget it! Also, I'll never forget that you and the Tucker twins never told the rest of the fellows about it. That was sure white of you! Please put in a good word for me when you write to Annie, my Annie.
Yours truly,George Massie.CHAPTER XXII
A LETTER FROM PAGE ALLISON TO THE TUCKER TWINS
Bracken, Va.Milton P. O.My dearest Tweedles:
I am sending you letters from Annie and from Sleepy. I am awfully excited about Sleepy. He seems to be wide awake. Father says he will come through the war and be a distinguished person of some sort, he believes. I think Annie's letter is awfully interesting. Isn't it fun for old Sir Arthur Ponsonby Pore to have won the love of the Lady Annie by swearing? I know your father will die laughing over it.
I am up to my neck with Miss Pinkie Davis in the house, getting some sewing done so I won't have to be worried with shirt-waists and things when we get to New York. Mammy Susan is still miffed with me for going, and I feel awfully bad about it. Isn't it great that Mary can go, too? Do you reckon we'll see Jessie Wilcox in New York? Not if she sees us first, I fancy! Four girls in a flat and that flat not so very swell wouldn't appeal to Miss Wilcox, I think.
Father is giving iron tonics right and left, and has made up a gallon of pump water with a beautiful pink vegetable dye in it for Sally Winn so she won't have to die before he gets back. Poor Joe Winn is very sad that I did not let him know you were here on the last trip. I really forgot to do it. We were having such a wildly exciting time making our plans for New York that poor Joe never came into my head.
It is so splendid that Father is going, too. If these people will only stay well until he can get started, then they can be sick all they want and have a doctor over from the crossing. There is a perfectly good doctor there, that is, a perfectly good doctor if one is prepared for death!
Good-by! I must stop and help Miss Pinkie. How I do hate to sew! To think in a few days almost I'll be In New York With the Tucker Twins.
Your best friend,Page Allison.THE END