"
"Just the eyes, that's right," said Bok. "But they burned into me all
right, my boy."
"I don't think I get you, sir," said the boy.
"No, you wouldn't," Bok replied. "You couldn't, boy, not until you're
older. But, tell me, how in the world did you ever get out of it?"
"Well, sir," answered the boy, with that shyness which we all have come
to know in the boys who actually did, "I guess it was a close call, all
right. But just as you left us, a hospital corps happened to come along
on its way to the back and Miss Nelson--the nurse, you remember?--she
asked them to take me along. They took me to a wonderful hospital, gave
me fine care, and then after a few weeks they sent me back to the
States, and I've been in a hospital over here ever since. Now, except
for this thickness of my voice that you notice, which Doc says will be
all right soon, I'm fit again. The government has given me a job, and I
came here on leave just to see my parents up-State, and I thought I'd
like you to know that I didn't go West after all."
Fifteen minutes later, Edward Bok left his editorial office for the last
time.
But as he went home his thoughts were not of his last day at the office,
nor of his last acts as editor, but of his last caller-the soldier-boy
whom he had left seemingly so surely on his way "West," and whose eyes
had burned into his memory on that fearful night a year before!
Strange that this boy should have been his last visitor!
As John Drinkwater, in his play, makes Abraham Lincoln say to General
Grant:
"It's a queer world!"
XXXVII.
Pages:
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437