Plooie Of Our Square

"Ah? That will clarify itself, perhaps, in time. If you will bear with me, I should like to tell you a little story to be passed on to those who are not his friends. Will you not be seated, Madame?"

The Bonnie Lassie resumed her place on the bench. Standing before us, the big man began to speak. Many times since have I wished that I might have taken down what he said verbatim; so gracious it was, so simple, so straightly the expression of a great and generous personality.

"Emile Garin," he said, "was a son of Belgium. He was poor and his people were little folk of nothing-at-all. Moreover, they were dead. So he came to your great country to make his living. When our enemies invaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, the little Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfit for military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the mornings they must sweep him away from our Consul-General's doorsteps here because otherwise he would not--You spoke, Monsieur?"

"Nothing. I only said, 'God forgive us!'"

"Amen," said the narrator gravely. "Everywhere they rejected him as unfit. So he became morbid. He hid himself away. Is it not so?"

"That is why they left Our Square so mysteriously," confirmed the Bonnie Lassie.

"After that he hung about the docks. He saw his chance and crawled into the hold of a vessel as a stowaway. He starved. It did not matter. He was kicked. It did not matter. He was arrested. It did not matter. Nothing mattered except that he should reach Belgium. And he did reach my country at the darkest hour, the time when Belgium needed every man, no matter who he was. But he could not be a soldier, the little Garin, because he was unable to march. He had weak legs."

At this point the eternal feminine asserted itself in the Bonnie Lassie. "I told you there was something," she murmured triumphantly.

"Hush!" said I.

"I am glad to find that he had one true defender here," pursued the biographer of Plooie. "Though he could not fight in the ranks there was use for him. There was use for all true sons of Belgium in those black days. He was made driver of a--a charette; I do not know if you have them in your great city?" He paused, and I guessed that the rumble of heavy wheels on the asphalt, heard near by, had come opportunely. "Ah, yes; there is one."

"A dump-cart," supplied the Bonnie Lassie.

"Merci, Madame. A dump-cart. It is perhaps not an evidently glorious thing to drive a dump-cart for one's country--unless one makes it so. But it was the best the little Garin could do. His legs were what you call quaint--I have already told you. He was faithful and hard-working. They helped build roads near the front, the little Garin and his big cart."

"Not precisely safety-first," whispered the Bonnie Lassie to me, maliciously.

"You are interrupting the story," said I with dignity.

"One day he was driving a load of mud through a village street. Here on this side is a hospital. There on that side is another hospital. Down the middle of the road walks an idiot of a sergeant carrying a new type of grenade with which we were experimenting. One moves a little lever--so. One counts; one, two, three, four, five. One throws the grenade, and at the count of ten, all about it is destroyed, for it is of terrible power. The idiot sergeant sets down the grenade in the middle of the road between the two hospitals full of the helplessly wounded. For what? Perhaps to sneeze. Perhaps to light a cigarette. Heaven only knows, for the sergeant has the luck to be killed next day by a German shell, before he can be court-martialed. As he sets down the grenade, the little lever is moved. The sergeant loses his head. He runs, shouting to everybody to run also.

"But the hospitals, they cannot run. And the wounded, they cannot run. They can only be still and wait. In the nearest hospital there is a visitor. A great lady. A great and greatly loved lady." The sad voice deepened and softened.

"I know," whispered the Bonnie Lassie; "I can guess."

"Yes. But the little Garin, approaching on his big dump-cart, does not know. He knows the danger, for he hears the shouts and sees the people escaping. He sees the grenade, too. A man running past him shouts, 'Turn your cart, you fool, and save yourself.' Oh, yes; he can save himself. That is easy. But what of the people in the hospitals? Who can save them? The little Garin thinks hard and swiftly. He drives his big dump-cart over the grenade. He pulls the lever which dumps the mud. The mud buries the grenade; much mud, very soft and heavy. The grenade explodes, nevertheless.

"One mule blows through one hospital, one through another. Everything near is covered with mud. The great lady is thrown to the floor, but she is not hurt. She rises and attends the injured and calms the terrified. The hospitals are saved. It is a glorious thing to have driven a dump-cart for one's country--so."

"But what became of our Plooie?" besought the Bonnie Lassie.

The big man spread his arms in a wide, Gallic gesture. "They looked for him everywhere. No sign. But by and by some one saw a quite large piece of mud on the hospital roof begin to wriggle. The little Garin was that large piece of mud. They brought him down and put him in the hospital which he had saved. For a long time he had shell-shock. Even now he cannot speak of the war without his nerves being affected. When he got out of hospital, he did not seem to know who he was. Or perhaps he did not care. Shell-shock is a strange thing. He went away, and his records were lost in the general confusion. Afterward we sought for him. The great lady wished very much to see him. But we could find nothing except that he had come back to this country. Official inquiry was made here and he was traced to Our Square. So I came to see him. Because he cannot speak for himself and will not allow his wife to tell his story--it is part of the shell-shock which will wear off in time--I came to speak for him."

"Does your--do you do this sort of thing often?" asked the Bonnie Lassie with a queer sort of resonance in her voice.

The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling: "One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But there is a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved lady whom the little Garin saved."

"I see," said the Bonnie Lassie softly.

After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice.

"Plooie!" she said, and that was all.

"You are crying," I said.

"I'm not," she retorted indignantly. "But you ought to be. For your injustice."

"If we all bewept our injustices," said I oracularly, "Noah would have to come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his."

"What do you think of him?" said the Bonnie Lassie.

"As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert animal-breeder, his selections were at times ill-advised."

"Don't be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I'm not interested in Noah."

"As to our romantic visitant," I said, "I think that Cyrus the Gaunt would better be watchful. I've never known anyone else except Cyrus to produce such an emotional effect upon you."

"Don't be school-girlish!" admonished the Bonnie Lassie severely. "Poor old Dominie! He doesn't know what's going on under his very nose. Where are your eyes?"

"In Mendel's top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are we going to make it up to Plooie?"

"I don't think you need worry about that," returned the Bonnie Lassie loftily.

Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city's reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with his important notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder and disdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted sign across the front of Plooie's basement, was the magnet that drew them:

      Emile Garin & Wife
  Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser

               to

          His Majesty

     The King of the Belgians
       (By Royal Warranty)

No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Their well-deserved fortune is made.

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