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Yellow Butterflies

Shortly after daylight next morning the tramp of marching men and clatter of hoofs and grinding of wheels before the Capitol told that the greatest parade of American history was forming, and the khaki tide rolled into ordered ranks. The woman saw this beginning, very early in the morning. She was there before the bugle sounded attention across the plaza and the cavalrymen snapped out their sabres and the infantrymen came to present and the officers to salute and the colors were dipped—and the sun sent a beam to Freedom on the dome and another to a casket moving through the doorway. She saw it carried down the long steps by the bravest of the brave, all decorated men, and placed on the black-draped caisson with its black horses, and its soldiers sat on their scarlet saddle-cloths. She saw that, and she saw the President and “Black Jack” Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the A. E. F., following as chief mourners—Pershing wearing, of all his decorations, only the Victory Medal to which every American soldier has a right—the caisson where lay—Dick. She saw the crowds dense up Pennsylvania Avenue, the historic road “where the tramping ghosts of Grant’s legions marked a course.” She saw the silent, attentive thousands who packed the sidewalks, standing there to take their part in what was theirs, the glory of the American people. “Out in the broad avenue was a simple soldier, dead for the honor of the flag. In France he had died as Americans have always been ready to die, for the flag and what it meant.” The woman saw the massed, reverent faces, and read this in them. “It’s Dick,” she said. Later, not remembering very much how she had come, she found herself at Arlington, at the Amphitheatre, with yet more thousands. There were bright colors of foreign dress uniforms and masses of khaki and light and shadow and the snowy gleam of columns against a background of trees. Later there was distant, solemn music through the trees. From the direction of the fort the dim color of troops came nearer and nearer, clearer and clearer; the marine band, half-step to the throb of drums, swung out and circled the colonnade. The caisson rolled up where a white-surpliced choir waited, and men in uniform with medals on their breasts lifted Dick, and the choir sang “The Son of God Goes Forth to War.” They carried him past the troops with rifles at “present,” past the bareheaded people, through the pillared colonnade, with the white choir and the clergy leading them, the great of many lands awaiting him. They placed him on a catafalque, flower-covered, and the great audience, all the thousands, rose and stood as he passed in—Dick—with Pershing still following, Pershing who had trudged seven miles from the Capitol behind his soldier. The coffin rested on its base as if held up by a mound of blossoms—and suddenly the woman felt stabbed with a knife, a frantic, unbearable feeling. Her boy lay there with no sign of her near him. The nation had heaped him with honor, but Dick would not be satisfied with the nation, missing his mother. In her hand was a bunch of roses; she wondered where she had gotten them, and vaguely recalled a florist’s shop on the way out. She sprang toward a guard, a soldier, and the man stared at her as people did. “Put these—put these—right close to him,” she begged in sliding Southern speech. “He’s—he’s my boy.” The soldier little guessed how literal the words were to her, but they went direct to his heart. A boy of hers lay in France; this one stood for him; so he understood it. “Yes, ma’am,” he said gently. He took the flowers and went away with them and in a moment she saw them laid on the coffin, their white heads against a gorgeous wreath of red roses. The President’s red roses—but the woman did not know that. The man came back then and found her a place in one of the first rows of the curving line of seats where were only men and women in black. The mighty service went on. The woman going through it with the others seemed aware of it through another’s senses, as if she were removed where her consciousness could not make contact with anything earthly. This was Dick’s funeral, but she was not sad. Only fused to a hazy exaltation. Maybe Dick’s light-hearted spirit was there, hovering over all this and lifting her spirit with him. In any case her flowers lay close to him, clinging whitely against that blood-red wreath. They must be, she was guessing, just above where the withered little French roses rested still on Dick’s dear cold heart. To see them there brought a manner of comfort to her. And the service went on. As Bishop Brent’s voice ended, the bells over in Washington were ringing noon, and sharply the clear, high notes of a trumpeter blew attention. She stood up with the thousands, the millions, the nation. For the nation paused during two minutes then to honor—Dick. All over America, in churches, in marketplaces, on railway lines, the rushing life of the country stopped and the populace stood silent with bowed heads for that tremendous moment, honoring the men who had died. Then it was over; a minute-gun boomed across the river at the base of the Washington Monument; led by the band the stirred multitude swung into “America.” “My country, ’tis of thee,” the people sang. And the woman sang with them. She could; she was dry-eyed and calm; this was Dick’s funeral, her little boy Dick, her splendid, big son. Yet she seemed to feel nothing. The Lord God was going to give her a sign that it was Dick. She was anxious about that. Certain, yes, of course; but a sign was to come. Nervousness caught her as the President began to speak; she wished the Lord God would hurry; it would do at any time, surely, yet this strain of waiting was difficult. It was hard to listen to the President while one was watching every moment for the sign. And with that his voice had slipped into words as familiar as her own name, words which she had taught to Dick. “Our Father which art in Heaven——” There was a soft, many-rustling sound of thousands rising, and all the voices took up the age-old words: “Hallowed be Thy Name—Thy will be done.” Yes, indeed. The Lord God knew that she had bowed to His will, even as to that word “missing.” She supposed it was His will. She had borne it, somehow. But now that Dick was dead, and carried home all these miles, bringing peace in his quiet hands, now the Lord God ought to give her the sign. He ought, really. With that a quartet was singing something about how <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse outdent">“Splendid they passed, the great surrender made</div> <div class="verse">Into the light that nevermore shall fade.”</div> </div></div> </div> Oh, yes. But one doesn’t care so much about splendor and unfading light—when one misses Dick. The comforting thing was that Dick was to bring peace—peace forever. He would care about that; that would make him glad. And there was going to be a sign that this boy, this Unknown Soldier coming from his grave in France at the very moment of the Peace Conference—that this boy was Dick. How could she be otherwise than restless till the sign came? Back of the carved, calm face in which the gray Irish eyes glowed such thoughts were seething. Lawyers weighing evidence would hardly have found her argument valid. The desperate brain which made them more than half knew the sophistry. But the brain was desperate. One cannot face the word “missing” for many months and keep coolly logical. This was the last straw to hold her to sanity—that Dick was the Peace Bringer; that this boy was Dick. These things she must believe. Must. Quietly she gazed as minute by splendid minute passed, each crowded with such things as America has never seen before. She watched an officer in uniform, a “Sam Browne” belt across his breast, step forward. What were they going to do now? The officer shifted the flowers toward the foot, and she gasped as the President’s great red wreath was moved; her roses were next; it was too bad to take her roses away from Dick. But see—they were left. The officer touched them, and left them; the little sheaf was not in the way. But what was going to happen? He rolled back the flag with its heavy gold fringe, and with that the President stood there and was reading something—citations—reverently, in his incisive voice; then he bent and pinned two precious things to the black cloth of the coffin—the Distinguished Service Cross and that which Americans believe the highest decoration in the world, the Congressional Medal of Honor. How pleased Dick would have been! “Won in mortality to be worn in immortality,” spoke the President. Was Dick’s gay spirit maybe even now hovering, watching it all, smiling the sweet, half-shy, one-sided smile she knew, laughing at himself a bit for being the centre of this stupendous ceremony? In quick succession one brilliant uniform succeeded another by the narrow box, each fastening to the black cloth an honor which men have died to win. Something contracted her throat with a short sob when General Jacques, the Belgian, unpinned from his own coat the Cross of War which his King had put there and placed it on Dick’s coffin. And was not that Foch who swept off his white-plumed Marshal’s hat before the presence of—Dick? How Dick would have taken in the scarlet baldric, the gold sash, and red trousers! Dick had an enormous enthusiasm for Foch; once he had seen him—a solemn old fellow in a faded horizon-blue uniform and very muddy boots, the letter said. Smoking a pipe. Medal after medal; such an array as the greatest soldier on earth had never worn. They rolled back the flag over it all till the judgment day, and Sergeant Woodfill and the seven other heroes lifted Dick again and carried him down the marble steps. The band was playing “Our Honored Dead”; she raised her eyes and saw the city across the river; the dome of the Capitol under which Dick had slept last night; where only dead Presidents had ever slept before; nearer was the yellow of ploughed Virginia fields and the green of winter wheat; about them the snowy white of the great Amphitheatre, and directly beneath the boy as they carried him around was “a great splash of black—thousands of Americans with hats held in their hands.” Between these and the Amphitheatre was a white place with a hole in it. Dick’s grave. She moved dreamily toward that place, and people stood back for the black, lonely figure with its gold star. Unconscious of them, she passed till she was close enough to see everything. “It will be now, I think,” she was saying. “The Lord God will send His sign when they put Dick——” The rest of the words couldn’t be framed. Of course Dick’s soul wasn’t there; it was somewhere about, above, close—much interested and a good deal amused as well as thrilled; she felt that. This was only Dick’s body they were putting away covered with medals and flowers, laid on that priceless earth brought from France, scattered down for him to rest on. It was only his body. But such a precious, dear body; it had been so warm and strong—Oh, God! She alone out of the thousands knew that it was Dick, and even she—The Lord God certainly was slow about sending His sign. The beautiful church service was read; Dick’s soul was committed to God and his body to the grave. Some one touched a silver bar and the coffin sank slowly; a man in uniform placed a final wreath—from all the men of all our fighting armies. Then an old Indian in magnificence of chief’s feathers hobbled up and took off his sweeping war-bonnet, whose white feathers trailed to his moccasins, and laid it with a sort of stick across the open tomb. It was the last tribute. The warrior of ancient America saluted America’s warrior of to-day. A salvo of artillery. Another salvo—and another. The woman stared about. Dick would bivouac to-night in great company. All around him were monuments cut with names that were echoes of thunder of guns. There lay Porter and Crook; yonder lay Dewey. The slope carries along innumerable headstones; over the ridge are the grass ramparts of old Fort Myer, graves thick about them; she sensed these things as the guns rang the salvoes. The guns had stopped; a bugler, standing out, was playing “Taps”—the soldier’s good night. With the final silver note the artillery broke into the roar of the national salute of twenty-one guns. The crowds moved, shifted, thinned. The bright uniforms scattered and disappeared. But the tall, black figure stood there, conscious of the people only as a swimmer in deep water is conscious of the waves. She was in them, of them, but they had no personality for her. Slowly the huge audience spread away through the trees. The pageant was over. The pageant—what matter was that? Dick; Dick was dead and buried, and she stood by the grave of an Unknown Soldier and reproached God. He had sent her no sign that this boy was hers. Down among the new white crosses in the cemetery below moved figures; there are always figures moving among those crosses—but the woman felt herself alone. All the pomp and ceremony being finished, she was alone with her boy. She knelt near the new grave; the black veil blew about her, covering and uncovering the gold star on her sleeve. “God,” she whispered, “bless the men to-morrow who are trying to bring peace. I don’t know whether they know that it’s Dick who’s bringing it or not. I don’t care. I know, God, and You know. Only let Dick be the Peace Bringer, and let an American speak the master word. I thought the sign would be to-day, but I’ll be patient if it isn’t to be to-day. But, mighty God, don’t fail me in the end. You know how I couldn’t bear that. It means having Dick again—ever—somehow—I can’t say it well, but you’re God and You know how those things are tied together. Peace and Dick’s immortality and the sign. Be merciful; give it to me.” A week later in Kentucky blunt little Lynnette was reasoning with her. “You can’t expect to set a date with the Almighty,” reasoned Lynnette. “I think it will come—I do think so, though I don’t know why I think it. Only that such a longing as yours focussed on one thing must be a psychological force. And, whatever God is, He does answer prayer somehow.” “Yes, He does,” said the woman. “Wasn’t Hughes’ word sent straight as lightning from heaven? It came the day after the funeral—Dick’s funeral. It came out of Dick’s tomb. I can’t help believing the good Lord did plan, along with the salvation of the nations, to make Dick His Peace Bringer.” She waited a moment, eyes glowing with deep light. Then: “‘Whatsoever ye ask in My name, believing, ye shall receive it.’” A thousand times she had repeated that. Lynnette nodded practically. “Uh-huh, that says it. God certainly did stir up Hughes when he got off that proposition. Why shouldn’t we believe it was partly, anyhow, the huge emotion of the Unknown Soldier that pushed him? The sign may come in some shape you’re not dreaming. Likely it will—but it’ll come. I’m sure.” “I can’t imagine in what shape—that terrifies me at times. It seems so impossible. And if it shouldn’t come!” “You mustn’t think that,” rebuked Lynnette. “It depends so much on psychology, and your will may be a big part. You don’t have to imagine what it will be. Yet I—do imagine things.” “You do? What?” “Oh, well,” Lynnette answered slowly, “nothing definite. Sometimes I fancy that the identity wasn’t lost to everybody, over in France. That maybe the soldiers who—who brought the four boys from the cemeteries found something to mark them, or one of them, and just said nothing about it. Maybe one of those soldiers might come to you. Why,” exploded Lynnette, “two or three times when I’ve seen a young, military-looking chap coming down this street my heart has been in my mouth. I’ve said: ‘He’s the sign.’” “You have?” cried the woman. And then, with her arms reaching: “You little Lynnette! You loved Dick.” Lynnette nodded. “And Dick—loved me,” she whispered. She sprang up, and was gone. Outside she stopped a moment, staring at the sodden, round spot, half filled with snow, which had been a bed of dancing tulips. “I wonder if it’s a crime,” she reflected. “The engine skips. There’s no logic anywhere. But she’d go raving mad. And I love her.” Little, aggressive Lynnette flushed all by herself. “Dick left me, in a sort of way, to his mother. He said: ‘Be sweet to her, Lynnette.’ Well,” Lynnette ended defiantly, “I reckon I can lie a good while longer, if it helps her.” It is queer, considering what a small accident and what a second of time may end a life, that so many lives weather appalling shocks and years of heart-break. The woman, going softly with an ear alert always to catch a message, found that winter was past and spring coming in overnight jumps to her Southern land. With it the restlessness of spring crystallized into an overwhelming necessity to see the white tomb at Arlington. It was imperative, that desire. There was no money for travelling expenses, but some old mahogany went to a dealer, and on an April day she started. Spring comes easily in the South. It is much as if the lover you doubted turned all at once his face toward you lighted with the fire unmistakable, and you wondered in the warm flood of happiness if ever you did doubt. So in the turn of a hand in that God’s country there are vivid colors of tulips and jonquils and hyacinths—gold and purple and pink—and the hedges are dim with mists of juicy color, and the lawns have sprung to emerald, and the sunlight stipples the ground with gold laughter through the lace of boughs. And one wonders if ever there was melting snow and cold wind. Out at Arlington the sunlight played gaily on the headstones among the trees, dancing about the solemn things as if to say that, after all, life is only a moment; that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country, and that these light-hearted dead should be kept in bright memory. Till it came to the snow of the Amphitheatre and the white tomb on the terrace, and there the sunlight seemed to pour itself out in full-hearted golden tide. Dreamily, mystically, smilingly it wrapped in its arms the grave of America’s boy. All about the tomb the grass seemed greener, and the air of a richer sweetness. Fold on fold the calm hills dropped away to the Virginia horizon; the mast of the Maine brought from Havana shot its slender spire beyond the Amphitheatre; the old house of history, the pillared, porticoed house of the Lees, peered out from the woods like a big, gentle, dumb creature, watching in its old age its family who had fought and come through to Peace. The woman scattered a quantity of yellow tulips on the grave till it was all golden with them. “God,” she prayed, kneeling close—closer than she could be in November—“God, I’ve come such a long way. I’ve waited such a long time. Only You can give what I’ve come for. I want it so. Give me Your sign.” A long time the black figure knelt amidst the whiteness and greenness and spring gaiety. Many things she prayed, and at the last for power to give up hope. For there was yet no sign. Perhaps there never would be. Sobbing a little, she bent and kissed the yellow tulips, and turned to go. As she drifted away step by step suddenly the bells over in Washington were ringing the noon-hour, and she faced about, remembering. As she turned, up from the grass below, over the white edge of the terrace, stormed a fluttering mass of bright wings, and filled all the air with beckoning gold. A moment they hung, twinkling over the tomb, and then fell, brilliant, incredible, and lighted on the gold cups of the tulips, and flickering, dancing, gathered the sunlight into their myriad wings. The Cloudless Sulphurs; Dick’s butterflies; the symbol of immortality. The sign. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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