Part 6

Sara Lee had known comparatively few men. In that small and simple circle of hers, with its tennis court in a vacant lot, its one or two inexpensive cars, its picnics and porch parties, there was none of the usual give and take of more sophisticated circles. Boys and girls paired off rather early, and remained paired by tacit agreement; there was comparatively little shifting. There were few free lances among the men, and none among the girls. When she was seventeen Harvey had made it known unmistakably that Sara Lee was his, and no trespassing. And for two years he had without intentional selfishness kept Sara Lee for himself.

That was how matters stood that January night when Sara Lee went upstairs after Harvey had gone and read Mabel's letter, with Harvey's photograph turned to the wall. Under her calm exterior a little flame of rebellion was burning in her. Harvey's perpetual "we," his attitude toward the war, and Mabel's letter, with what it opened before her, had set the match to something in Sara Lee she did not recognize--a strain of the adventurer, a throw-back to some wandering ancestor perhaps. But more than anything it had set fire to the something maternal that is in all good women.

Yet, had Aunt Harriet not come in just then, the flame might have died. And had it died a certain small page of the history of this war would never have been written.

Aunt Harriet came in hesitatingly. She wore a black wrapper, and her face, with her hair drawn back for the night, looked tight and old.

"Harvey gone?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I thought I'd better come in. There's something--I can tell you in the morning if you're tired."

"I'm not tired," said Sara Lee.

Aunt Harriet sat down miserably on a chair.

"I've had a letter from Jennie," she stated. "The girl's gone, and the children have whooping cough. She'd like me to come right away."

"To do the maid's work!" said Sara Lee indignantly. "You mustn't do it, that's all! She can get somebody."

But Aunt Harriet was firm. She was not a fair-weather friend, and since Jennie was good enough to offer her a home she felt she ought to go at once.

"You'll have to get married right away," she finished. "Goodness knows it's time enough! For two years Harvey has been barking like a watchdog in front of the house and keeping every other young man away."

Sara Lee smiled.

"He's only been lying on the doormat, Aunt Harriet," she observed. "I don't believe he knows how to bark."

"Oh, he's mild enough. He may change after marriage. Some do. But," she added hastily, "he'll be a good husband. He's that sort."

Suddenly something that had been taking shape in Sara Lee's small head, quite unknown to her, developed identity and speech.

"But I'm not going to marry him just yet," she said.

Aunt Harriet's eyes fell on the photograph with its face to the wall, and she started.

"You haven't quarreled with him, have you?"

"No, of course not! I have something else I want to do first. That's all. Aunt Harriet, I want to go to France."

Aunt Harriet began to tremble, and Sara Lee went over and put her young arms about her.

"Don't look like that," she said. "It's only for a little while. I've got to go. I just have to, that's all!"

"Go how?" demanded Aunt Harriet.

"I don't know. I'll find some way. I've had a letter from Mabel. Things are awful over there."

"And how will you help them?" Her face worked nervously. "Is it going to help for you to be shot? Or carried off by the Germans?" The atrocity stories were all that Aunt Harriet knew of the war, and all she could think of now. "You'll come back with your hands cut off."

Sara Lee straightened and looked out where between the white curtains the spire of the Methodist Church marked the east.

"I'm going," she said. And she stood there, already poised for flight.