T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
359
August 1932
READERS . . . B y F lorence N ye W hitwell
He has sounded forth the trumpet That shall never call retreat. He is sifting out the hearts o f men,, ■ Before His judgment seat. Oh, be swift my soul to welcome Him, Be jubilant my feet, For God is marching on.
“ Oh, Beautiful for Patriot Dream” “ Upon all the glory shall be a defence” (Isa. 4 :5). “ Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psa. 33:12). ^ ^ leanor is at the North Shore.” “Why, Constance, I thought your letter from Rodney said they were to be in Maine this summer!” “ It did. But you know how much Eleanor likes the North Shore; Althea. So there they are.” Eleanor, in fact, was seated at that very moment in a deep, Comfortable rattan chair, on the veranda of the golf club, drinking iced pomegranate juice. This delectable, ruby red beverage had been introduced by Rodney himself. From California it came, and all their world of the North Shore had gone wild about it. Eleanor was reflecting on this as she sipped. She was only half conscious of the golfers’ small talk that was ping- ponging all about her. The sizzling statement that Mrs. Wyndham went out in forty to Mrs. Jack Leslie’s forty- three, and that Mrs. Wyndham was three-up at the turn, but Mrs. Jack’s fine five, on the 555-yard eighteenth, nearly—^ :y_.- : ' - ’■ -;: ■\; ■L -J ;- s : ■ - ' ? Eleanor turned from these technicalities. She did not take her golf so seriously. All around her floated the char acteristic conversational drifts: “ My dear! Caroline was wild about it”—etc. “ Tell him! I’ll say I told him! He went over to that broker’s office one scared baby, I’m here to tell you— ” “ No pomegranate juice, thanks! Something with a kick in it-—” “ A kick in it !” That was the strong, sinister undercur rent that Eleanor was feeling and perceiving everywhere about her now. “ Something with a kick in it”—how often one heard i t ! Sometimes it was an appeal. There was a real need in the mind of the suppliant of being “ pepped up” for some activity or other. But more often, to Eleanor’s keen young mind, the plea was made with the idea of showing that one was very smart, or very “ ritzy,” as Rodney said. “ Half of them don’t want it, or like it,” he went on. “ They just think the big shots ask for it, and so they do likewise.” Eleanor looked off to the flag that waved in long, lan- gorous ripples about the pole on the clubhouse lawn. It was a grand old flag, she thought—those white stripes that stood for pure patriotism; and those red ones that sym bolized the patriotic blood poured forth; and above and beside them that piece of heaven’s own color, with the stars shining through the blue. Surely, here was an em blem of one’s nation, calculated to thrill a patriot’s heart! And as she mused, Eleanor remembered the time of the World War, when as a child, she had gone to see the sol diers at an embarkation point. It was the farewell evening, and the young soprano from Norfolk had sung. Rows and rows of young men in olive, drab had listened quietly:
The soprano had sung it with solemnity. The hour was a tense one, and as she came to the majestic chorus with its glorious fullness, the young men of the American Ex peditionary Forces, some of them about to make the great sacrifice of their lives, took it up and sang it with her, not loudly, but softly, reverently, as with a due comprehen sion of its significance, Glory, glory, hallelujah, Our God is marching on. “ Surely, he’s marching on in these troublous times, too,” thought Eleanor. He * * * * Mrs. Jack Leslie walked up the path from the eigh teenth green, and dropped quietly into a chair beside Elea nor. She was greeted with acclaim. Her best shots were extolled, and her poor ones—which she herself described— were relegated to oblivion. “ Mrs. Jack” was very popular. Her keen gray eyes were merry, though they pierced like sharpest steel when scorn or gossip or meanness looked through them. Mrs. Jack wore her bonny brown hair in a tight little braid, turned under, and tied with a piece of plain black ribbon, after the manner of horsewomen a gen eration ago, before the bob. She was the proud and happy owner of a bit of horse flesh called “ Roman,” a gelding who had “made it” all by himself one day in a minute and thirty odd seconds at Saratoga. The fact that Roman had failed to smash a record only because the occasion was unofficial simply made his fiery little mistress love him all the more. She sank back in the cushioned chaise longue, asked for something cool and wet, and turned to give her firm, sport-hardened little hand to Rodney. “ Here’s the boy who wants to ride Roman!” Her ac cent had a soft Kentucky turn-—Rodney flushed and straightened up joyfully. It was an honor to ride Roman, and to have Mrs. Jack speak right out before the whole clubhouse about it was superlative. “ How about tomorrow ?” she inquired, with the soft little drawl of a laugh that was one of her many charms. Eleanor caught her breath. The next day was Sunday, and for the first time, she and Rodney were having a young people’s meeting out-of-doors. It would occur at the very hour when Roman took his daily exercise. Poor Rodney! He had been subjected to so many tests lately! He had confided to Eleanor that he hoped he would have a little rest now. All this flashed through her mind in an instant, and with a quick lifting of her heart for guidance, Eleanor exercised a little sisterly tact. “ Before he talks that over with you, walk down Featherbed Lane with me to meet Sonia,” she said coax- ingly, slipping her hand through Mrs. Jack’s arm. “ Sonia’s going away Monday, you know, and Banks has just driven her to the village to send a wire. She said she must send it herself.”
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