Georgina's Service Stars

"It pays to keep hope at the prow, Uncle Darcy!"

And he, rousing up with a start at the familiar call, smiled a welcome and answered as he did when I was a child, the same affectionate light in his patient old eyes.

"Aye, lass, it does that!"

"And we're coming into port with all flags flying!"

Then he knew. The trembling joy in my voice told him.

"You've heard from Richard!" he exclaimed quaveringly, "and you've come to tell the old man first of all. I knew you would."

And then for a little while we sat and rejoiced together as only two old mariners might, who had each known shipwreck and storm and who had each known the joy of finding happy anchorage in his desired haven.

On the way home I stopped to tell Babe. Good old Babe. She was so glad that the tears streamed down her face.

"Now I can help with your wedding," was her first remark. "Of course, he'll have to be invalided home, for I don't suppose he's more than skin and bone if he's been in the hands of the Germans all this time. But, under the circumstances, you won't mind marrying a living skeleton. I know I wouldn't if I were in your place. He'll be coming right back, of course."

Everybody I met seemed to think the same thing. They took it for granted that he'd done all that could be expected of a man. That three months in a German prison was equal to several dyings. After I got home I told Captain Kidd. He was lying on the rug inside the hall door with his nose between his paws, seemingly asleep. "Richard's coming," was all I said to him, but up he scrambled with that little yap of joy and ran to the screen door scratching and whining to be let out. It was so human of him that I just grabbed his shaggy old head in my arms and hugged him tight. "He's coming some day," I explained to him, "but we'll have to wait a while, old fellow, maybe a long, long while. But we won't mind that now, after all we've been through. Just now it's enough to know that he's alive and safe."

My Nineteenth Birthday. It's wonderful that Richard's letter should happen to get here on this particular day. The sight of his familiar handwriting gave me such a thrill that it brought the tears. It was almost as if he had called my name, seeing it written out in his big, bold hand.

He says he can't tell me the details of his experiences now. They are too fierce for him to attempt to put on paper till he is stronger. Babe was right. He's almost the shadow of his former self. But he says he is beginning to pick up famously. He is in Switzerland, staying with a family who were old friends of his father's. They are taking royal care of him, and he's coming around all right. The wound in his arm (he doesn't say how he got it) is healing rapidly.

Oh, it's a dear letter – all the parts in between about wanting to see me, and my being doubly dear to him now – but he doesn't say a word about coming home. Not one word!

A Week Later. He has written again, and he is not coming home until the war is over. He'll be able to go back into the service in a couple of months, maybe sooner, if he stays on quietly there. It isn't that he does not want to come. He has been behind the lines and seen the awfulness. It must be stopped. Those prison camps must be wiped out! We must win as soon as possible! He feels, as never before, the necessity for quick action, and he makes me feel it too.

"Dad's sacrifice must not be in vain," he writes. "Nor Belgium's, nor the hordes of brave men who have fallen since. And we must not go on sacrificing other lives. This thing has got to be stopped!

"I know you feel the same way about it, Georgina. I'm sure that you want me to stay on here without asking for a furlough, since by staying I can be up and at it again sooner. Say that you do, dearest, so that I may feel your courage back of me to the last ditch."

I have said it. The answer is already on its way. How could I be selfish enough to think of anything but the great need? I am only one of many. In millions of windows hang stars that tell of anxious hearts, just as anxious as mine, and of men at the front just as dear to those who love them as mine. I can wait!

And waiting —

I see Richard.. climbing the Green Stairs.. coming into the little Home of our Dreams! I see the smile in his dear eyes as he holds out his arms to me.. having earned the right to make all those dreams come true.. having fought the good fight.. and kept the faith.. that all homes may be safe and sacred everywhere, the wide world over..

And seeing thus, I can put up with my "long, long night of waiting," thinking only of that heavenly ending!