Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 258, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1918 — Summering in Texas [ARTICLE]

Summering in Texas

By LINCOLN TOTHBLUM

(Copyright, ISIB, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) When Betty Wilson heard of German atrocities and the appalling casualties, she was shocked in a very perfunctory manner. She felt as if such things ought to horrify her, and accordingly would raise her hands, palms outward, in an attitude of dismay, and with a pretty shudder beg you to desist It was awful, just awful. It took her mother’s unexpected message, “Bobby’s enlisted,” to make the war a vital thing to her. For, although Bobby himself never knew what place he held in his sweetheart’s affections Betty had no doubts that Bobby ranked ace high. "Bobby’s enlisted?” repeated Betty, incredulously. "In what branch?” Mrs. Wilson advanced toward her daughter. Betty had not taken her own brother’s enlistment so to heart "In the cavalry,” she answered. "Is it not wonderful that he was accepted?” There was a moment’s silence and then Betty was crying. “But, my dear,” Mrs. Wilson comforted gently, “whatever is the piatter? Are you not proud to hear it?” « “Oh, yes, yes,” came in a choked voice, muffled in the folds of a handkerchief hiding eyes already sadly red, “but the cavalry is the most dangerous thing in the world. He can get killed most any time.”

A ring at the bell interrupted the tearful grievance. As Mrs. Wilson opened, the door she whispered a hasty word to the broad-shouldered visitor. “Where’s Betty?” he called out in a husky voice as he entered the living room and pretended not to see her. Perhaps it was because of the whispered warning that Bobby was not totally unprepared for the onslaught, for with a cry of “Oh, Bobby, oh, Bobby!” Betty flung the tiny daintiness of her person into his arms. It required but a short conference between the two, consummated by the approval of Mrs. Wilson, to decide the trip to the leading jeweler in town. And a slightly longer conference placed upon the rosy-tipped finger of Betty’s left hand tjie warning solitaire. And Betty sent him away smiling. She had always felt that if her mother had not been so foolishly prejudiced she would have made an illustrious actress. Here her heart was crying and breaking, but her eyes were dry and there was a smile on her lips. And the train letter she had given him was a happy, jolly letter, full of good cheer, but she hoped he could see where the tears had fallen on the pages. At the camp post office it was not

long before the soldier detailed to sort the mall knew to what troop “Robert Denton” belonged without further reference to the address, for letters and parcels, penned in a very feminine script, came with such regularity and quantity that he often was compelled to remark to the fortunate lad, "I wish you had to sort your own mail. You get more’n the whole regiment put together." At which Bobby would smile and, tucking a box of candy under one arm and a box of “smokes under the other, would stride off reading a whopper of a letter, as he loved to dub the voluminous manuscripts which Betty spent numberless hours to compose. • It was the middle of July—a very hot and dry July. Formerly Betty had been the first to suggest vacation, and early June as a rule found her at the seaside. Mrs. Wilson was nonplussed. > “Where are you planning to go this season?”' she asked, ‘fl thought of Nanton Hook, Maine. The breezes are so cool there.” Betty shook her head with a decided negative. “Perhaps you may be going to Nanton Hook, Maine. But I am going to El Paso, Texas. Mrs. Wilson stared. Texas for a vacation! Texas in the summer! Was her daughter in sober earnest? 1 And then she remembered —and remembering, she smiled. For close to El Paso was Fort Bliss. And at Fort Blisswell, at Fort Bliss was Bobby. As the hours flew by when the train crossed the boundary line .into Texas, Betty kept wondering if there were any end to the Lone Star state. Within short periods the scenery changed with unbelievable rapidity. At early morning she was traveling through a mountainous region—huge, stately hills rising majestically from the ground. Noon saw vast stretches of arid desert land with its network of irrigation canals and ditches. Now It was a plateau unrelieved save fbr the stubbles of cactus plants and then a deep ravine from which the water had vanished eons ago. Night .of the third day brought the travelers to the city of El Paso, picturesque because of its constant competition in architecture, language and population for American or Mexican supremacy. “Hotel Paso del Norte,” Betty directed the taxi driver, and was very proud that he understood‘her. Perhaps she would have hesitated before complimenting herself upon her skillful use of the Spanish tongue had she known the chauffeur was quite accustomed to understanding the language incorrectly enunciated. The following morning found Betty urgently hurrying her mother tor early departure for the camp. But long

after Mrs. Wilson pronounced her toilet completed. Betty still primped before the mirror. She must look her very best, she thought, and later stolid El Pasoans found a second turn of the head well worth while as. the faitskinned northerner motored by. At the fort Betty wondered why the soldier on guard assumed such an aggressive position as she smiled her prettiest and asked to be directed to the proper location. “It seemed.” she afterward told her mother, “as if he was'afraid I wanted to snatch his rifle from him. Bobby’s tent necessitated a long climb on foot through a sandy, uphill stretch, and it was a rather breathless Betty who stopped before the tent to which she had been directed. As she saw no one, she motioned to her mother, laboriously making the ascent, to wait below. Betty walked a few paces off. She could see no one Jn or about the tent. A bit off she saw a laborer cleaning a saddle, and behind him a soldier with a rifle. She decided that she would make Inquiry of him and advanced. “Can you tell me—” That man in blue overalls! That man scrubbing a saddle! Betty reeled. It was Bobby! With an armed soldier behind him! He was a prisoner. And he had told her he had won a sergeant’s chevrons. Betty flew down the hill as she heard the soldier says: “Has the skirt gone nuts?” And Mrs. Wilson became fully convinced she had been very unwise to accede to her daughter’s plans, as her arm was grabbed and she was violently pulled down the hill by a very agitated Betty. “Stop, stop, Betty, my slippers are full of sand!” But her appeal brought no response, nor could she on the ride back to the hotel elicit any explanation for the sudden demand that they return immediately home. But Mrs. Wilson was too eager to leave the hot climate to question very minutely her daughter’s change of plans. The bellboy had already carried their valises into the taxi and Mrs. Wilson was making a final inspection of their room to see that nothing had been left behind. Betty stood disconsolately at the window, gazing at the -street below.

“All right, Betty,” called her mother, "let’s go.” “Yes, let’s go,” repeated Betty in an unwilling tone. She. did not want to leave El Paso, but it was the only alternative. As the elj§£atef stepped at the main floor and discharged its burden Betty stood aghast. There was Bobby! Her Bobby. But looking surprisingly military in a perfectly fitting uniform. And on his arm were the prescribed three stripes of a sergeancy! He turned and saw. her. “Betty,” he cried out joyfully as he made a rush for the girl shrinking behind a huge palm. The hotel Quests turned to stare at the unusual commotion. “Betty, my Betty,” he called as he caught up to her, “come to me.” And as she held off, “What is the matter?” Betty was choking. She could hardly speak. “But you’re a prisoner !” “A prisoner?” Bobby repeated questlonlngly. “I’m no prisoner.” His emphatic denial did not convince her. “Oh, but I saw you this morning at camp. Yon were in overalls, scrubbing a saddle, and there was a soldier with a rifle behind you.” Bobby laughed loud and long. His voice re-echoed throughout the lobby. “Oh, you dear, dear Betty. Don’t you know soldiers wear blue denims so as not to soil their uniforms? And the soldier behind me—that’s my bunkie 1” As hotel guests and employees returned to newspaper and duties they pretended not to see the happy kiss of reconciliation. Mrs. Wilson leaned weakly against a cAalr. "Imagine,” she said, “summering in Texas!”