“I know, Rachel, I know. Don't cry any more than you can help. And if it helps you any to make believe--I mean to keep on hopin' he's alive somewheres--why, do it. It won't do any harm, I suppose. Only I wouldn't hint such a thing to Cap'n Lote or Olive.”
“Of course not,” indignantly. “I ain't quite a fool, I hope. . . . And I presume likely you're right, Laban. The poor boy is dead, probably. But I--I'm goin' to hope he isn't, anyhow, just to get what comfort I can from it. And Robert Penfold did come back, you know.”
For some time Laban found himself, against all reason, asking the very question Rachel had asked: Did they actually KNOW that Albert was dead? But as the months passed and no news came he ceased to ask it. Whenever he mentioned the subject to the housekeeper her invariable reply was: “But they haven't found his body, have they?” She would not give up that tenth chance. As she seemed to find some comfort in it he did not attempt to convince her of its futility.
And, meanwhile The Lances of Dawn, Being the Collected Poems of Albert M. C. Speranza was making a mild sensation. The critics were surprisingly kind to it. The story of the young author's recent and romantic death, of his gallantry, his handsome features displayed in newspapers everywhere, all these helped toward the generous welcome accorded the little volume. If the verses were not inspired--why, they were at least entertaining and pleasant. And youth, high-hearted youth sang on every page. So the reviewers were kind and forbearing to the poems themselves, and, for the sake of the dead soldier-poet, were often enthusiastic. The book sold, for a volume of poems it sold very well indeed.
At the Snow place in South Harniss pride and tears mingled. Olive read the verses over and over again, and wept as she read. Rachel Ellis learned many of them by heart, but she, too, wept as she recited them to herself or to Laban. In the little bookkeeper's room above Simond's shoe store The Lances of Dawn lay under the lamp upon the center table as before a shrine. Captain Zelotes read the verses. Also he read all the newspaper notices which, sent to the family by Helen Kendall, were promptly held before his eyes by Olive and Rachel. He read the publisher's advertisements, he read the reviews. And the more he read the more puzzled and bewildered he became.