United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The light from the courtyard had a greenish tinge that made their faces look pale and dead, like the faces of men that have long been shut up between damp prison walls. "And Fuselli had a girl named Mabe," said Andrews. "Oh, she married a guy in the Naval Reserve. They had a grand wedding," said Al. "At last I've got to you!"
An idea that he repelled came into his mind. The corporal didn't look strong. He wouldn't last long overseas. And he pictured Mabe writing Corporal Dan Fuselli, O.A.R.D.5. At the end of the afternoon, the lieutenant appeared suddenly, his face flushed, his trench coat stiffer than ever. "All right, sergeant; line up your men," he said in a breathless voice.
Fuselli remembered the pamphlet "German Atrocities" he had read one night in the Y. M. C. A. His mind became suddenly filled with pictures of children with their arms cut off, of babies spitted on bayonets, of women strapped on tables and violated by soldier after soldier. He thought of Mabe. He wished he were in a combatant service; he wanted to fight, fight.
A farm-hand was first to note their call, and got such a case of wanderlust when he observed the geese that he kept on going without return to the house. He wrote, however, this significant news: "Jack: Wild guse on your pleace. Leve corn on wood-lot. He come back mabe. Steve." Jack Miner did just that; and the next year he left the corn a little nearer the house and so on.
"You have to cross the ferry to Oakland. My aunt...ye know I ain't got any mother, so I always live at my aunt's.... My aunt an' her sister-in-law an' Mabe... Mabe's my girl...they all came over on the ferry-boat, 'spite of my tellin' 'em I didn't want 'em. An' Mabe said she was mad at me, 'cause she'd seen the letter I wrote Georgine Slater.
I am very much disturbed, I acknowledge, an' so would you, mabe, if you knew as much as I do." "You're the color of death," she replied putting her fingers upon his cheek; " an, my God! is it paspiration I feel such a night as this? I declare to goodness it is. Give me the white pocket-handkerchy that you say Peggy Murray gave you. Where is it?" she proceeded, taking it out of his pocket.
"I'll fix it up with Marie." Fuselli followed doubtfully. He was a little afraid of Dan Cohan; he remembered how a man had been court-martialed last week for trying to bolt out of a cafe without paying for his drinks. He sat down at a table near the door. Dan had disappeared into the back room. Fuselli felt homesick. He was thinking how long it was since, he had had a letter from Mabe.
Some day, he was saying to himself, he'd make a hell of a lot of money and live in a house like that with Mabe; no, with Yvonne, or with some other girl. "Must have been immoral, them guys," said the private in Aviation, leering at the girl in the dirty blouse.
Fuselli went to sleep on the hard floor, feeling the comfortable warmth of Grey's body along the side of him, hearing the endless, monotonous patter of the rain on the drenched canvas above his head. He tried to stay awake a minute to remember what Mabe looked like, but sleep closed down on him suddenly. The bugle wrenched them out of their blankets before it was light. It was not raining.
He pictured himself shooting dozens of men in green uniforms, and he thought of Mabe reading about it in the papers. He'd have to try to get into a combatant service. No, he couldn't stay in the medics. The train had started again.
Word Of The Day