The Carter Express. (Carter, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 33, Ed. 1 Friday, November 6, 1914 Page: 3 of 11
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CARTER. 0 K L A.. EXPRESS
(Copyright, 1914, by Charles Scribner’s Sons)
8YNOPSI8.
h°me on the frontier between
ths Browne and Grays Marta Galland and
her mother entertaining Colonel Wester-
the Grays, see Captain Lanatron,
•tad Intelligence officer of the Browns,
injured by a fall In his aeroplane. Ten
La,te/- Westorlln*. nominal vice but
I?R‘ ohlef of staff, reinforces South La
rir, meditates on war, and speculates on
Jbe comparative ages of himself and Mar-
Si yoo Is visiting In the Gray capital.
Westerllng calls on Marta. She tells him
W her teaching children the follies of war
martlal Patriotism, begs him to pre-
while he Is chief of staff, and
predicts that If he makes war against the
S.i-D'T.? he will,not win. On the march
with the 63d of the Browns Private Stran-
•ky, anarchist, decries war and played-
«ut patriotism and Is placed under arrest,
volonel Lanatron everhearlng. begs him
®u.
CHAPTER IV—Continued.
Then impulse broke through the
restraint that seemed to characterize
the Lanstron of thirty-five. The Lan-
■tron of twenty-five, who had met
catastrophe because he was “wool-
gathering," asserted himself. He put
his hand on Stransky’s shoulder. It
was a strong though slim hand that
looked as if it had been trained to do
the work of two hands in the process
■of its owner's own transformation.
Thus the old sergeant had seen a gen-
eral remonstrate with a brave veteran
who had been guilty of bad conduct in
Africa. The old colonel gasped at such
* subversion of the dignity of rank.
He saw the army going to the devil.
Hut young Dellarme, watching with
eager curioeity, was sensible of no
familiarity in the act It all depended
on how such a thing was done, he was
thinking.
“We all have minutes when we are
more or less anarchists,” said Lan-
■tron in the human appeal of one man
to another. “But we don’t want to be
Judged by one of those minutes. I got
* hand mashed up for a mistake that
took only a second. Think this over
tonight before you act. Then, if you
«re of the same opinion, go to the col-
onel and tell him so. Come, why not?”
"All right, sir, you’re so decent
about it!” grumbled Stransky, taking
Ills place in the ranks.
Hep-hep-hep! The regiment started
on its way, with Grandfather Fragini
keeping at his grandson’s side.
“Makes me feel young again, but it’s
«Jarned solemn beside the Hussars,
’with their horses’ bite a-jingllng. Times
kave certainly changed—officers’
hands in their pockets, saying ‘if you
don't mind’ to a man that’s insulted
the flag! Kicking ain’t good enough
for that traitor! Ought to hang him—
yes, sir, hang and draw him!”
Lanstron watched the marching col-
umn for a time.
“Hep-hep-hep! It’s the brown of the
Infantry that counts in the end," he
mused. “I liked that wall-eyed giant.
He’s all man!"
Then his livening glance swept the
heavens inquiringly. A speck in the
blue, far away in the realms of atmos-
pheric infinity, kept growing in size
until it took the form of the wings
with which man flies. The plane vol-
planed down with steady swiftness,
till its racing shadow lay large over
the landscape for a few seconds before
It rose again With beautiful ease and
precision.
"Bully for you, Etzel!” Lanstron
tbought, as he started back to the
aeroplane station. “You belong in the
corps. We shall not let you return to
your regiment for a while. You've a
cool head and you’d charge a church
tower if that were the orders.”
CHAPTER V.
A Sunday Morning Call.
As a boy, Arthur Lanstron had per-
eisted In being an exception to the in-
fluences of both heredity and environ-
ment. Though his father and both
grandfathers were officers who be-
lieved theirs to be the true gentle-
man’s profession, he had preferred
any kind of mechanical toy to arrang-
ing the most gayly painted tin sol-
diers in formation on the nursery
floor; and he would rather read about
the wonders of natural history and
electricity than the campaigns of Na-
poleon and Frederick the Great and
my Lord Nelson. Left to his own
choice, he would miss the parade of
the garrison for inspection by an ex-
cellency in order to ask questions of
r man wiping the oil off his hands with
cotton-waste, who was far more enter-
taining to him than the most splck-and-
*.|>an ramrod of a sergeant
Upon being told one day that he was
to go to the military school the follow-
be broke out in open re-
autur
nt to go to the army!
“Why?” asked his father, thinking
that when the boy had to give his rea-
sons he would soon be argued out of
the heresy.
"It’s drilling a few hours a day, then
nothing to do," Arthur replied. “A1
your work waits on war and you don’t
know that there will ever be any war.
It waits on something nobody wants
to happen. Now, if you manufacture
something, why, you see wool come
out cloth, steel come out an automo-
bile. If you build a bridge you see it
rising little by little. You’re getting
your results every day; you see your
mistakes and your successes. You’re
making something, creating some-
thing; there’s something going on all
the while that isn’t guesswork,
think that’s what I want to say. You
won’t order me to be a soldier, will
you?"
The father, loath to do this, called in
the assistance of an able pleader then,
Eugene Partow, lately become chief of
staff of the Browns, who was an old
friend of the Lanstron family. Partow
turned the balance on the side of filial
affection. He kept watch of the boy,
but without favoring him with influ-
ence. Young Lanstron, who wanted to
seq_ results, had to earn them. He real-
ized in practice the truth of Partow’s
saying that there was nothing he had
ever learned but what could be of setv
ice to him as an officer.
"Finding enough work to do?” Par-
tow would ask with a chuckle when
they met in these days; for he had
made Lanstron both chief of intelli-
gence and chief aerostatic officer.
Young Colonel Lanstron’s was the duty
of gaining the secrets of the Gray
staff and keeping those of the Brown
and organizing up-to-the-moment effi-
ciency in the new forces of the air.
He had remarked truly enough that
the injury to his left hand served as
a better reminder against the folly of
wool-gathering than a string, even a
large red string, tied around his fin-
ger. Thanks to skillful surgery, the
fingers, incapable of spreading much,
were yet serviceable and had a firm
grip of the wheel as he rose from the
aeroplane station on the Sunday morn
ing after Marta’s return home for t
flight to La Tir.
He knew the pattern weaving under
his feet as one knows that of his own
garden from an overlooking window.
Every detail of the staff map, ravines,
roads, buildings, battery positions, was
stitched together In the flowing reality
of actual vision. No white posts were
necessary to tell him where the
boundary between the two nations lay.
The line was drawn in his brain.
Now that Lanstron was the organ-
izer of the aviation corps his own
flights were rare. Mostly they were
made to La Tir. His visits to Marta
were his holidays. All the time that
she was absent on her journey around
the world they had corresponded. Her
letters, so revealing of herself and her
peculiar angles of observation, formed
a bundle sacredly preserved. Her
mother’s joking reference about her
girlish resolution not to marry a sol-
dier often recurred to him. There, he
sometimes thought, was the real ob-
stacle to his great desire.
When he alighted from the plane he
thrust his left hand into his blouse
pocket. He always carried it there,
as if it were literally sewn in place.
In moments of emotion the scarred
nerves would twitch as the telltale of
his sensitiveness; and this was some-
thing he would conceal from others no
matter how conscious he was of it him-
self. He found the Galland veranda
deserted. In response to his ring a
maid came to the open door. Her
face was sad, with a beauty that had
prematurely faded. But It lighted
pleasurably in recognition. Her hair
was thick and tawny, lying low over
the brow; her eyes were a softly
luminous brown and her full lips sensi-
tive and yielding. Lanstron, an inti-
mate of the Galland household, knew
her story well and the part that Marta
had played in it.
Some four years previously, when a
baby was in prospect for Minna, who
wore no jedding ring, Mrs. Galland
had been inclined to send the maid to
an Institution, “where they will take
good care of her, my dear. That’s
what such institutions are for. It is
quite scandalous for her and for us—
never happened in our family before!"
Marta arched her eyebrows.
“We don’t know!" she exclaimed
softly.
“How can you think such a thing,
j let alone saying it—you, a Galland!"
he | h®r mother gasped In Indignation.
“That Is, if we go far back,” said
Marta. "At all events, we have no
precedent, so let’s establish one by
keeping her.”
"But for her own sake! She will
have to live with her shame!” Mrs.
Galland objected. "Let her begin
afresh In the city. We shall give her
a good recommendation, for she is
really an excellent servant. Yes, she
will readily find a place among
strangers.”
"Still, she doesn’t want to go, and It
would be cruel to send her away.”
“Cruel! Why, Marta, do you think
I would be cruel? Oh, very well, then
we will let her stay!"
“Both are away at church. Mrs. Gal-
land ought to be here any minute, but
Miss Galland will be later because of
her children’s class,” said Minna. “Will
you wait on the veranda?”
He was saying that he would stroll
In the garden when childish footsteps
were heard in the hall, and after a
curly head had nestled against the
mother’s skirts Its owner, reminded of
the importance of manners in the
world where the stork had left her,
made a curtesy. Lanstron shook a
small hand which must have lately
been on intimate terms with sugar or
jam.
“How do you do, flying soldier man?”
chirruped Clarissa Eileen. It was evi-
dent that she held Lanstron in high
favor.
“Let me hear you say your name,"
said Lanstron.
Clarissa Eileen was triumphant. She
had been waiting for days with the
revelation when he should make that
old request Now she enunciated It
with every vowel and consonant cor-
rectly and primly uttered; indeed, she
repeated it four or five times in proof
of complete mastery.
“A pretty name. I've often wondered
how you came to give It to her,” said
Lanstron to Minna.
“You do like it!" exclaimed Minna
with girlish eagerness. “I gave her
the most beautiful name I could think
of because"—she laid her hand caress-
ingly on the child’s head and a ma-
donna-like radiance stole into her face
—“because she might at least have a
beautiful name when”—the dull blaze
of a recollection now burning in her
eyes—"when there wasn’t much pros-
pect of many beautiful things coming
into her life; though I know, of course,
that the world thinks she ought to be
called Maggie."
* * • • • * •
Proceeding leisurely along the main
-path of the first terrace, Lanstron fol-
lowed it past the rear of the house to
the old tower. Long ago the moat that
surrounded the castle had been filled
In. The green of rows of grape vines
lay against the background of a mat
of ivy on the ancient stone walls, which
had been cut away from the loopholes
set with window glass. The door was
open, showing a room that had been
clased in by a ceiling of boards from
the walls to the circular stairway that
ran aloft from the dungeons. On the
floor of flags were cheap rugs. A num-
ber of seed and nursery catalogues
were piled on a round table covered
with a brown cloth.
“Hello!” Lanstron called softly.
“Hello!” he called louder and yet
louder.
Receiving no answer, he retraced his
steps and seated himself on the second
terrace in a secluded spot In the
shadow of the first terrace wall, where
he could see anyone coming up the
main flight of steps from the road.
When Marta walked she usually came
from town by that way. At length the
sound of a slow step from another di-
rection broke on his ear. Some one
was approaching along the path that
ran at his feet Around the corner of
the wall, In his workman’s Sunday
clothes of black, but wearing his old
straw hat, appeared Feller, the gar-
dener. He paused to examine a rose
bush and Lanstron regarded him
thoughtfully.
As he turned away he looked up,
and a glance of definite and unfalter-
ing recognition was exchanged be-
tween the two men. They had the
garden to themselves.
“Gustave!” Lanstron exclaimed un-
der his breath.
“Lanny!” exclaimed the gardener,
turning over a branch of the rose bush.
He seemed unwilling to risk talking
openly with Lanstron.
“You look the good workman in his
Sunday best to a T!” said Lanstron.
“Being stone-deaf,” returned Feller,
with a trace of drollery in his voice,
“I hear very well—at times. Tell me”
—his whisper was quivering with
eagerness—'“shall we fight? Shall we
fight?”
“We are nearer to It than we have
ever been in our time,” Lanstron re-
plied.
The hat still shaded Feller’s face,
his stoop was unchanged, but the
branch In his hand ehook.
“Honest?1 he exclaimed. ”0h, the
chance of it! The chance of it!”
“Gustave!” Lanstron’s voice, stil>
low, came in a gust of sympathy, and
the pocket ^hich concealed his hand
gave a nervous twitch as it it held
something alive and distinct from his
own being. "The trial wears on you!
Do you want to go?"
“No!” Feller shot back Irritably.
“No!’ he repeated reeolutely. “I don’t
went to go! . I mean to be game—I—1
He shifted his gaze from the bush
which he still pretended to examine
and suddenly broke off with: “Miss
Galland is coming!”
Lanstron started toward the steps
that Marta was ascending. She moved
leisurely, yet with a certain springy
energy that suggested that she might
have come on the run without being
out of breath or seeming to have made
an effort.
“Hello, stranger!" she called as she
saw him, and quickened her pace.
"Hello, pedagogue!" he responded.
As they shook hands they swung
their arms back and forth like a pair
of romping children for a moment.
"We had a grand session of the
school this morning, the largest class
ever!" she said. "And the points we
scored off you soldiers! You’ll find
disarmament already In progress when
you return to headquarters. We’re ir-
resistible, or at least,” she added, with
a flash of Intensity, "we’re going to be
some day.”
"So you put on your war-paint!”
"It must be the pollen from the hy-
drangeas!” She flicked her handker-
chief from her belt and passed It to
him. "Show that you know how to be
useful!"
He performed the task with delib-
erate care.
"Heavens! You even have some on
your ear and some on your hair; but
I'll leave It on your hair; it’s rather be-
coming. There you are!” he concluded.
"Oft my hair, too!”
“Very well. I always obey orders.”
"I oughtn’t to have asked you to do
It at all!” she exclaimed with a sud-
den change of manner as they started
up to the house. “But a habit of
friendship, a habit of liking to believe
in ono’e friends, was uppermost. I
forgot. I oughtn’t even to have shaken
hands with you!"
"Marta! What now, Marta?” he
asked.
He had known her in reproach, in
anger, in laughing mockery, in mili-
tant seriousness, but never before like
this. The pain and indignation In her
eyes came not from the sheer hurt of
a wound but from the hurt of its
source. It was as if he had learned by
the signal of its loes that he had a
deeper hold on her than he had real-
ized.
“Yes, I have a bone to pick with
you," she said, recovering a grim sort
of feUowshlp. “A big bone! If you’re
half i friend you’ll give me the very
marrow of it.”
"I am ready!” he answered more pa-
thetically than philosophically.
"There’s not time now; after lunch-
eon, when mother is taking her nap,”
she concluded as they came to the last
step and saw Mrs. Galland on the
veranda.
Ater luncheon Mrs. Galland kept bat-
tling with her nods until nature was
victorious and she fell fast asleep.
Marta, grown restlees with impatience,
suggested to Lanstron that they stroll
In the garden, and they took the path
past the house toward the castle
tower, stopping In an arbor with high
hedges on either side around a statue
of Mercury.
"Now!" exclaimed Marta narrowly
"It was you, Lanny, who recommend-
ed Feller to us as a gardener, compe-
tent though deaf! I have proved him
to be a man of most sensitive hearing.
I didn’t let him know that he was dis-
covered. You brought him here—you,
Lanny, you are the one to explain.”
"True, he is not deaf!” Lanstron re-
plied.
"He is a spy?” she asked.
. “Yes, a spy. You can put things In
a bright light, Marta!" He found words
coming with difficulty in face of the
pain and disillusion of her set look.
“Using some man as a pawn; setting
him as a spy in the garden where you
have been the welcome friend!" she
exclaimed. "A spy on what—on my
mother, on Minna, on me, on the flow-
ers, as a part of this monstrous game
of trickery and lies that you are play-
ing?’’
There was no trace of anger In her
tone. It was that of one mortally hurt.
Anger would have been easier to bear
than the measuring, penetrating won-
der that found him guilty of such a
horrible part. Those eyes would have
confused Partow himself with the
steady, welling intensity"of their gaze.
She did not see how his left hand was
twitching and how he stilled its move-
ment by pressing it against the bench.
“You will take Feller with you when
you go!" she said, rising.”
Lanstron dropped his head in a kind
of shaking throb of his whole body and
raised a face white with appeal.
"Marta!” He was speaking to a pro-
file, very sensitive and yet like ivory.
’Tve no excuse for such an abuse of
hospitality except the obsession of a
loathsome work that some man must
do and 1 was set to do. My God, Marta!
I cease io be natural and human. I am
a machine. I keep thinking, what if
war comes and some error of mine let
the enemy know where to strike the
blow of victory; or if there were infor-
mation I might have gained and failed
to gain that would have given ui the
victory—if, because I had not done my
part, thousands of lives of our soldiers
were sacrificed needlessly I **
At that she turned on him quickly,
her face softening.
“You do think of that—the lives T"
"Yes, why shouldn’t I?”
"Of those on your side!” she ex-
claimed, turning away.
"Yes, of those first,” he replied.
"And, Marta, I did not tell you why
Feller was here becauce he did not
want me to."
CHAPTER VI.
A Crisis Within a Crisis.
Following the path to the tower
leisurely, they bad reached the tower.
Feller's door was open. Marta looked
Into the room, finding In the neat ar-
rangement of its furniture a new sig-
nificance. He was absent, for It was
the dinner hour.
“On my recommendation you took
him,” Lanstron said.
‘Yes, on yours, Lanny, on a friend's!
You"—she put a cold emphasis on the
word—“you wanted him here for your
plans! And why? You haven’t an-
swered that yet. What purpose of the
war game does he serve in our gar-
den?”
His look pleaded for patience, while
he tried to smile, which was rather dif-
ficult in face of her attitude.
"Not altogether in the garden; part-
ly In the tower," he replied. “You are
to be In the whole secret and In such a
way as to make my temptation clear, I
hope. First, I think you ought to see
the setting. Let us go in."
Impelled by a curioeity that Lan-
stron’s manner accentuated, she en-
tered the room. Apparently Lanstron
was familiar with the premises. Pass-
ing through the sitting-room Into the
room adjoining, where Feller stored
his tools, he opened a door that gave
on to the circular stone steps leading
down Into the dungeon tunnel.
“I think we had better-have a light,”
he said, and when he had fetched one
from the bedchamber he descended the
steps, asking her to follow.
They were in a passage six feet In
height and about three feet broad,
which seemed to lead on Indefinitely
into clammy darkness. The dewy walls
sparkled In fantastic and ghostly
iridescence under the rays from the
lantern. The dank air lay moist against
their faces.
“This is far enough.” He paused
and raised the lantern. With its light
full In her face, she blinked, "there,
at the height of your chin!”
She noted a metal button painted
gray, 'set at the side of one of the
stones of the wall, which looked un-
real. She struck the stone with her
knuckles and it gave out the sound of
hollow wood, which was followed, as
an echo, by a little laugh from Lan-
stron. Pressing the button, a panel
door flew open. revealing a telephone
mouthpiece and receiver set in the
recess.
"Like a detective play!" were the
first words that sprang to her lips.
"Well?” As she faced around her
eyes glittered in the lantern rays.
“Well, have you any other little tricks
to show me? Are you a sleight-of-hand
artist, too, Lanny? Are you going to
take a machine gun out of your hat?”
"That is the whole bag,” he an-
swered. "I thought you’d rather see
it than have it described to you."
“Having seen it, let us go! ” she said,
in a manner that implied further reck-
oning to come.
"If out of a thousand possible
sources one source succeeds, then the
cost and pains of the other nine hun-
dred and ninety-nine are more than re-
paid," he was saying urgently, the sol-
dier uppermost in him. "Some of the
best service we have had has been ab-
surd in its simplicity and its audacity.
In time of war more than one battle
has been decided by a thing that was a
trifle in itself. No matter what your
preparation, you can never remove the
element of chance. An hour gained in
information about your enemy's plans
may turn the tide in your favor. A
Chinese peasant spy, because he hap-
pened to be intoxicated, was able to
give the Japanese warning In time for
Kuroki to make full dispositions for
receiving the Russian attack In force
at the Sha-ho. There are many other
incidents of like nature in history. So
is is my duty to neglect no possible
method, however absurd,”
By this time he was at the head of
the steps. Standing to one side, he of-
fered his hand to assist Marta. But
she seemed not to see it. Her aspect
was that of downright antagonism.
“However absurd! Yes, it is absurd
to think that you can make me a party
to any of your plans, for—” She broke
off abruptly with staring eyes, as if she
had seen an apparition.
Lanstron turned and through thet
door of the toolroom saw Feller enter-
ing the sitting-room. He was not the
bent, deferential gardener. His fea-
tures were hard-set, a fighting rage
burning in his eyes, his sinews taut
( as if about to spring upon an adver-
sary. When he recognized the In-
truders he turned limp, his head
dropped, hiding his face with his hat
i brim, and he steadied himself by rest-
ing a hand on the table edge.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
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Waggoner, Thomas T. The Carter Express. (Carter, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 33, Ed. 1 Friday, November 6, 1914, newspaper, November 6, 1914; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc956998/m1/3/: accessed April 18, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.