show her emotion but to toss her apron convulsively over
her face and swing Cevery wildly to and fro, so that the infant's cries
arose above the chorus of "good-bys" as we drove away.
"Farewell, comrade." We heard Aaron Kallaberger's stentorian tones as
we clattered around the bend. "Head up--eyes front--for'a'd!"
Tim turned and waved his hat to the little company at the gate, to all
the friends he had ever known, to the best he ever was to know; to Mrs.
Bolum and her Isaac, feebly waving the hands that had so often helped
him in time of boyish trouble; to Nanny Pulsifer and Tip; to all the
worthies of the store.
Tim was off to war. He was going to take part in a greater battle than
I had ever seen, for I had been one of thousands who had marched
together on a common enemy. He was going forth as did Launcelot and
Galahad, alone, to meet his enemies at every turn, to be sore pressed,
and bruised and wounded; not to be as I was, a part of a machine, but
to be the machine and the god in it, too. How I envied him! He was
going forth to encounter many strange adventures, and while he was in
the press, laying about him in all the glory of his strength, fighting
his way against a mob, to fame and fortune, I should be dozing life
away with Captain.
"Did it feel that way when you left?" said Tim. He spoke for the first
time when we passed the tannery lane, and his voice was a wee bit husky.
"I suppose it's the same with everybody when they turn the bend," I
answered.
"That's it exactly--at the turn in the road--when you can't see home
any more--when you'd give all the world to turn back, but dare not."
Tim had faced about and was looking over the valley as we climbed the
long slope of the ridge. "It's just like being torn in two, isn't it?"
he said.
"Naturally," said I. "Home and home people are as much a part of you
as head and limbs. When I dragged you away, binding you here in the
buggy with your tin trunk and your ambition, something had to snap."
"And it snapped at the bend," Tim said grimly; "when I saw the last of
the house and the rambo tree at the end of the orchard."
My brother took to whistling. He started away bravely with a
rollicking air, keeping time to the creaking of the buggy and the slow
crunching of the horse's feet on the gravel road. Even that failed
him. We were at the crest of the hill; we were turning another bend;
we were in the woods, and through the trees he had a last
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