Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 284, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1917 — A War Memento [ARTICLE]

A War Memento

By George Elmer Cobb

{Copyright. lilt. Western Newspaper Union.) “Where’s the sunshine gone to, little woman?’’ cried Bruce Manton, as he entered the house, home on the minute, as usual, from work. The room was full of It, outside all nature was bathed In It. Lettie Manton responded to the query in a halfpuzzled manner. Then she understood that It was the seriousness in her thoughtful face that her husband had referred to. She arose and greeted him with an enforced smile, but her kiss was as fervent as ever. “I was just thinking, dear,” she explained, “I received a letter from my mother’s half-brother an hour. ago. He is in New York city." “Good —grand!” sincerely jubilated Bruce. “Then he hah escaped from Belgium?” “He writes so,” responded Lettie, “but his property there has been de* stroyed and he is still suffering from a wound he received. He writes that he is too old and feeble for army work and has come back to his native country to die.” “Have you answered the letter?” “Oh, no. I wished to consult you about that first, of course.” “I don’t see any need of consulting,” declared Bruce. “He is your only relative. He is a victim of the war. helpless, probably robbed of everything he once owned. Write him at once, Lettie. This is his natural haven, with us. Tell him to come on and be sure of a glad welcome.” “Bruce,” said Lettie, .in broken tones quivering with emotion, “I think you are truly and grandly God’s good man 1” Bruce kissed and kissed the lovely face upturned to his own. He understood fully that Lettie had been worrying at the thought of saddling him with the-care of a relative. He never did things half way. He set all details of the present situation completely at rest now. “I’m glad your Uncle Vance is coming,” he salfl. “In the first place it’s our duty to look after him, under the circumstances. In the next, he will be company, yes, and maybe some help to you. lam always worrying while at work about your being alone way out here all day. Your uncle will be company for you. He can potter around the garden and do little errands for you, and what a lot that is interesting he can tell us about the warl” > Lettie wrote a heartsome letter to the refugee in the East forthwith. She took pleasure in fixing up their spare room and each succeeding day looked for the arrival of their expected guest A week passed by. “I hope Mr. Vance has not met with delay or accident” said Bruce, and Lettie was growing anxious: She would go outside and look across the half-mile expanse between their humble little home and the city’s limits half a dozen times a day. Their place was quite isolated, except for several houses in the same remote group as themselves. They formed the nucleus of a new subdivision of slow development. The roads were as yet unpaved and they had to use well water, but the house and lot had been offered to them cheap on long payments, so they had decided to-pioneer and made the task more hopeful, then certain, for Bruce had a position that brought In a very moderate-income. One morning Bruce went out, as was his routine, to let the chickens out for the day’s foraging, when he came to a dead stop with a stare. A man was just stepping from the shed. He was old and bent, poorly clad, unshaven, and the loose straws clinging to his hair and clothing indicated that he bad been sleeping in the shed all night. “Sort of late for your breakfast, aren’t you, friend?” bantered Bruce in his natural jolly way. “It’s got to seem so good to sleep without a lot of shells exploding all about you," responded the intruder, whom Bruce had at once put down as a tramp, “that I could sleep anywhere and enjoy it. I got here late and the house was all dark and I didn’t want th disturb you, so I bunked in among the fresh straw.” “Why!” shouted Bruce, enlightened, grabbing the old man and giving him, a friendly hug, “you’re Hubert Vance!” ‘♦What’s left of me,” assorted his vis-' itor, grimly, swinging a bandaged arm and pointing to a lacerated ear. “You act as if you were really glad to see me.” “Don’t you ever doubt it!” said Bruce briskly. “Lettie I” he called towards the house, “Here’s the good old friend we’ve been expecting for over a week.” Lettie came tripping from the house, welcome arms extended. Bruce could note the wrinkled, wearied face of the. old man thaw out under the Influence of genuine delight athls truly heartening reception. Uncle Hubert Vaiice slipped into harmony with the domestic economy of the family readily and comfortably. He had been for ten years a commercial agent in Belgium, had acquired quite some property, had shared in the frightful descent of the enemy upon that country, and had narrowly escaped with his life. The lads of the

neighborhood learned all this, and many a breathless juvenile audience he entertained with stories of the conflict that had robbed him qj his wealth. One thrilling incident in his adventurous career he loved to dwell over. It was where a shell came through a window in a room where he was sitting. Just in time he sprang at the messenger of death rolling across the floor, seized its spluttering fuse and snipped off and extinguished its burning end. “I’ve kept that shell as a memento," the old man would continue loquaciously. And then he would take them to the old shed and show them, high up on a special shelf, the round black object, the sight of which aroused their fertile fancies, later dwelling upon the frightful havoc an accidental explosion would create in the peaceful subdivision tract. The old man was failing fast Bruce and Lettie noticed it,-and he himself was aware of the fact “I’m not going to stay long with you, children,” he told them one evening, “and I hope when I’m gone there will be something left to repay you for all your great kindness to me. Ydu see, there’s a big indemnity covering my destroyed property in Belgium, if it is ever paid. I’m going to have a talk with you all about it in a day or two,” but the next day the old man was found seated in his favorite porch chair, dead, but with a peaceful smile on his old, furrowed face. Never a word did Bruce utter as to the expense the old man had been to him, and Lettie loved him all the more dearly for it. Their little one had come along the first month of Mr. Vance’s stay with them. They had named the child after him, and rapturously he had hinted at the provisions he should make for his namesake, “when he got his business affairs in shape.”

One morning, a few weeks later, Lettie was at a neighbor's with the baby. She had placed the little one asleep on a cushion, when her hostess came hurrying into the room where she was. “Oh, Mrs. Manton !” she cried, excitedly, “the high grass of your lot is all on fire. Some of those mischievous boys, I sea your shed is ablaze!” Lettie ran out to the door to share the agitation of her informant. She could see, half a mile away, the flames sweeping about the shed and darting over it toward the house. “Mind the baby!” she cried sharply, and started across the prairie in the direction of home. Half the distance accomplished, Lettie halted with a vivid shock. Of a sudden, a frightful detonation rent the air. She saw the shed soattered in fragments in every direction and some of the burning debris hurled to the roof of the house. “The bomb!” she fluttered. “The bomb that Uncle Hubert stored in the shed! Oh, the house is doomed, too!” An hour later no trace of the cherished little home was visible. Lettie wept bitterly and Bruce looked grave and worried, as they stood regarding the ruin about them. “Don’t despair,” Bruce tried to tell her cheerlngly. “You know ‘through heart-wreck and home-wreck, the hapr py sparrows build —’ ” “Oh, Mr. Manton! here’s a funny little iron box Ned Devon just poked out of the ashes of the old shed,” announced Lettie’s small brother, who was one of the crowd of curious youngsters attracted to the scene. “H. V.,” traced Bruce, Inspecting the box. “Why, those are your uncle’s initials, Lettie. He must have hidden it in the shed. It’s strong and solid and can’t be opened without the key.” “I wonder what is in it?” murmured Lettie. They took it to the house of a neighbor where they were to pass the night, and Bruce made an attack on the box with chisel and Itamdier. At length he succeeded in battering off the cover. A card showed first. “For my niece and her baby,” it read. Bonds, bank notes, some diamonds and a bag of gold pieces, an old watch, in turn amazed Bruce as he examined the contents of t&e box—a timely legacy that meant that Uncle Hubert had not boasted vainly when he had hinted at repayment for their unselfish kindness.