Fenville had never tolerated criticism, but the man in the faded uniform with the cross on his tunic and his head up, and his poor, blind, scarred face, exerted a strange influence over the audience. Even the least imaginative man had his vision of what that figure symbolized.
“It was looking at him, as much as hearing him speak—why, I seemed to get a sight right over to France as clear as if I had been there,” explained Mr. Totten afterwards. “France made Farragut Square look kind of small.”
“I’ll say just one thing more,” Miles went on, and you could have heard a pin drop in that hall. “If any of our boys don’t come back,—Lem Chapman and Frank Keeler and the others,—those that do, will they think a prettified Farragut Square is the best monument for the ones who died for us over there?”
The sergeant turned, and John Warren took hold of his arm to lead him back. Mr. Chapman, Lem’s father, was up like a flash.
“Hold on!” he shouted. “No, it ain’t, by Jupiter!”
Crash! Out came the handclapping like the rattle of rifle fire. More than one shrewd old eye was moist, and few were the hearts that did not beat with a more generous quickness.
“What can we do, Sergt. Miles?” asked Mr. Chapman. “You have told us what we shouldn’t do, and I for one thank you for it. We want to do the right thing. Every man of us here does. Tell us what it is.”
“Let us dispose of Article 10 first,” said Dr. Shepard. The house approved, and Mr. Chapman gave way. The article was put in the form of a motion, was voted upon, and defeated as if it had never had a friend in the world.
“Make a motion, Miles!” shouted a score of voices.
“Do you want to know what I should do?” said the soldier. “There are places in France and Belgium that used to be towns. Some haven’t even the cellars left. An American society has been formed to take hold of the work of building up those places after the war. We could write to that society and get the name of a town that once was—a little one; one where perhaps our own boys have fought. Fenville could put the money she meant to spend on herself into helping to make it a town again. It would help, don’t you worry about that. So Fenville could feel, always, long after our time, that that little French town was her camarade. And it would be her bit; Fenville’s bit.”