Half Portions. Edna Ferber
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what are you marrying for? Tell me! Tell your Aunt Sophy."
But Adele was straightening herself and pulling out the crushed folds of her veil. "To pay the mortgage on the old homestead, of course. Just like the girl in the play." She laughed a little. But Aunt Sophy did not laugh.
"Now look here, Delia. If you're—"
But there was a knock at the door. Adele caught up her flowers. "It's all right," she said.
Aunt Sophy stood with her back against the door. "If it's money," she said. "It is! It is, isn't it! Listen. I've got money saved. It was for you children. I've always been afraid. I knew he was sailing pretty close, with his speculations and all, since the war. He can have it all. It isn't too late yet. Adele! Della, my baby."
"Don't, Aunt Sophy. It wouldn't be enough, anyway. Daniel has been wonderful, really. Don't look like that. I'd have hated being poor, anyway. Never could have got used to it. It is ridiculous, though, isn't it? Like one of those melodramas, or a cheap movie. I don't mind. I'm lucky, really, when you come to think of it. A plain little black thing like me."
"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 Delia—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 Delia 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 that it might have appeared that Flora had been right. She took to her bed now in earnest, did Flora, and they thought that her grief would end in madness. 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! What difference does that make!"
This is the letter that made a difference to Aunt Sophy. You will have to read it to understand, though you are likely to skip letters on the printed page. You must not skip this.
AMERICAN RED CROSS
(CROIX ROUGE AMÉRICAINE)
MY DEAR MRS. BALDWIN:
I am sure you must have been officially notified, by now, 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 this 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 the gas so much 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 dreadful fight for life. He had several bad sinking 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? And if you'll only stay with me we'll win this fight." At intervals during the night I gave him sips of black coffee which was all he could swallow. Each time I gave it to him he would ask me if I had had some. That was only one instance of his thoughtfulness even in his suffering. 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 and shaking his fist, he said: "Then by the Lord 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 dead cigar in one corner of his mouth. Only Aunt Sophy sat quietly, waiting.
There was little conversation. None in the last five minutes. Flora broke the silence, dabbing at her face with her handkerchief as she spoke.
"Sophy, how can you sit there like that? Not that I don't envy you. I do. I remember I used to feel sorry for you. I used to say, 'Poor Sophy.' But you unmarried ones are the happiest, after all. It's the married woman who drinks the cup to the last bitter drop. There you sit, Sophy,