Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 255, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1918 — RE-enter Treadgold [ARTICLE]

RE-enter Treadgold

By DOROTHY DOUGLAS

It was the trailing melancholy of her voice that first stirred Treadgold’s lethargic pulse into action. Later he had a too fleeting glimpse of a pale oval face framed in tawny gold as Lida gazed wistfully from the rose-hung gate that opened into her cottage garTreadgold was annoyed with himself that the quality of the girt’s voice had twined itself among his senses and inWignant at womenkind in general merely because Lida’s eyes had stabbed his heart with a silent appeal. ; Ever since the day he had donned the khaki uniform and become a soldier to fight for his country Treadgold had eschewed anything even bordering on the feininine. He had shunned that thrilly, fascinating, heady world of the gentle sex as if it had the plague running wild within its borders. War was a thing apart —a business that must be sternly followed. There must be no counter-magnet luring the senses from the austere purposes of the fighting man. During his six months at training camp his brain had been far too busy for the most part in trying master the contents of some twenty or more textbooks, as well as drills, field practice and a few more oddments of learning, to find much time for missing the feminine part of life. A few more months at camp, where he and many of the field artillery men had been sent to officer the troops, quite rounded off Treadgold’s ability to live happily and usefully without the love of woman. In weaker moments, perhaps under the influence of a glorious moon or the trickle of woodland stream, remembrance of dainty, smiling lips, a swift caress or the fragrance of rumpled tresses came to disturb Treadgold’s war-filled brain. These had been fleeting, easily banished dreams., “Ancient past!” the fighting man would mutter grimly. But in the case of Lida’s blue-eyed, wistful face Treadgold found himself up against a power stronger than himself. Unless he took a frightfully circuitous route, his billet led him straight pqst the cottage, with Lida dither in it singing with melancholy sweetness, or gazing appealingly from the garden gate straight into the eyes of the passer-by. Treadgold was annoyed when he saw her and upset for the day when he didn’t see her. He felt that the girl was aware of his presence on the path, whether he passed or didn’t pass. This feeling, too, irritated him. He decided, however —and with the decision his jaw clinked —that he would fight this unknown girl’s influence, and as successfully as he had fought the lure, of all his feminine world when he had first entered the army. Soon France would see him an actual fighter on the battlefield. “And if I remain on that battlefield when the fight Is done/’ philosophised Treadgold, “therfe'-witi be less regret, and if I come out whole, then a straight path to something nifty, and not masculine, for me.” “In fact,” he decided, “something just about the type of Little Sad Eyes there will be my finish.”

So he fought the magnet and conquered. Had Treadgold been another type of man he could have managed to meet the girl who had stirred his pulses, could have loved 'and sailed away. But he was not that kind of man. Love to Treadgold was a wonderful thing. He could the less happily kill the Boche and destroy mankind greedily were he to be reminded constantly that he had left a wife behind. He knew that ever behind the sword thrust of battle he would sense the humanity side of the question, would realize before killing the man that he was also killing the woman whom that man had left behind —killing her happiness at least. Besides, Treadgold knew that should he marry a girl like Little Sad Eyes he would be consumed with longing for her every moment that held him from her side. He had not the strength to fight both the enemy and his own emotions. < So when the great ship stole out under cover of darkness from the New York wharf and sailed out toward France Treadgold found himself rejoicing that he was not bringing the tragedy of separation Into some one’s life. When the battle raged for him he was still more glad for a nasty bit of shell caught him pretty squarely in the temple. g Treadgold re-entered the world of feminity on a stretcher. In other words, he was carried tenderly if unconsciously into the hospital, where . the gentle, shunned sex topk him into its wonderful care. It was many weeks before Treadgold knew that he had re-entered the world where feminity played a vital part for consciousness was long in returning to him. His first waking glimpse was however a most delightful one. Sitting by his bedside was a charming nurse who started immediately to do Vbe hundred and one comforting, soothing, wonderful things about a bedside that only a womaA can do. Treadgold fancied he sml!e<ftU)ut his brain was not jufficiently brisk \ be certain of anything. x. His progress wasV I *’! rapid after

that first glimpse and be realised that a world with women in it was a good place to get back to. His nurse’s hands were slim and caressing and her hair waved softly about her smooth Treadgold wondered if he wpjflfi eventually find himself in love with her. He was, in fact, drifting in that direction when, during a dun afternoon in the hospital, he heard the trailing melancholy of a voice. Instantly Treadgold knew that it was the same voice augmented In sweetness and timber that had quickened his lethargic pulse—far back in America. For America seemed frightfully distant to Treadgold after the smoke and fire of battle and the long lapse from consciousness. He looked eagerly at his nurse. “Whose voice is that I hear?” he asked her. The nurse smiled at his excitement, scented a romance and told him all she knew. >

“Her name is Lida McVicker, and she is the niece of our staff surgeon. She was pining away by inches, it seems, in America because she couldn’t do anything when all her brave countrymen were going off to fight.” “But how did she ever get over here?” burst out Treadgold, - “from a cottage with roses— ■” The nurse smiled again. “The organizer of a concert party heard her singing and thought her voice held the appeal that our wounded boys would appreciate and —here it is. She sings every afternoon and evening and any other time when her voice is needed.r She’s happy now —happy as a lark. It’s wonderful what doing a little good to others does for oneself,” added the nurse. Treadgold then made a headlong, steady dash right into the heart of a world of feminity. He demanded to see Lida McVicker then and there.

When she stood beside him and looked with those wistful eyes straight into his face a deep, happy flush mounted her cheeks and Treadgold knew that recognition was there. Apparently she had not gazed unseeingly nor unfeelingly at him when he had daily passed her cottage gate. “Little Sad Eyes,” was what she thought he said by way of greeting, but she was never quite sure about it. There was so much unexpected emotion expressed in the wonderful meeting that words didn’t really count. Treadgold had i. always known that love would completely swamp him when it came, and he told Lida so before many moons had passed over thjjit region of the wortd.