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"Come and join us, veteran!" "Is Tom Tom Fragini here?" The answer came from a big soldier, who sprang to his feet and leaped toward the old man. "It's grandfather, as I live!" he called out, kissing the veteran on both cheeks. "I saw sister in town, and she said you'd be at the gate as we marched by." "Didn't wait at no gate! Marched right up to you!" said grandfather.
Some of those awake were too weary to give more than a nod and smile and an exclamation of delight. They had witnessed too much horror that day to be excited over a soldier with an old man on his back. A few of the others, including Tom Fragini, gathered around the pair. "We've arrived, grandfather!" said Stransky, squatting. There was no answer. "He certainly sleeps sound. I wonder if ."
Except for the few minutes when she had gone out on the veranda and had seen Stransky bringing in the lifeless body of Grandfather Fragini, she had been engaged since dark in completing the work of moving valuable articles from the front to the rear rooms of the house, which had been begun early in the day by Minna and the coachman.
They count on numbers," said Lieutenant Tom Fragini. "There you go, Tom! Any other pessimists or anarchists want to be heard?" called out Stransky. "Just how long, at the present rate, will it take them to get the whole range? There's a limit to the number of even five millions." "Yes, but if they ever break through in one place and get their guns up " "As you've said before, Tom!"
I know something, perhaps, that Westerling does not know. I have had an experience that he has not had and that few active officers of either army have had I have been under fire." His eyes flashed with the memory of his charge, and visions of the day when Grandfather Fragini was a beau sabreur and Marta Galland's father toasted quick death and speedy promotion seemed to cluster around him.
Got a game leg!" said grandfather, pointing to a swollen ankle that had been bruised by a piece of shrapnel jacket that had lost most of its velocity before striking him. "You do your duty and leave me alone. I ain't a fighting man any more. I done my work when I steadied you young fellows." "Yes, go on, Fragini," said Dellarme. "Attend to your men. Everybody in his place.
Too tired to take another step," and grandfather dropped in utter exhaustion. "Have to carry me if you want me to go." "That means two men out of the line," thought Dellarme. "You're an archaic old fire-eater!" Stransky remarked in cynical amusement to grandfather Fragini. "And you're a traitor!" answered grandfather with all the energy he could command.
Standing higher than the others on the edge of the breach was that giant who had brought Grandfather Fragini in pickaback, looking a young god on an escarpment of rock on Olympus.
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