Grandparent and child -- Fiction; Spanish Americans -- Fiction
He was wandering in that misty land between this world and the
next when, the armistice having been signed, an American Red Cross
representative found him. In the interval between fits of delirium
he told this man his name and regiment and, later, the name of his
grandparents. When it seemed sure that he was to recover the Red Cross
representative cabled the facts to this country. And, still later, those
facts, or the all-important fact that Sergeant Albert M. C. Speranza was
not dead but alive, came by telegraph to Captain Zelotes Snow of South
Harniss. And, two months after that, Captain Zelotes himself, standing
on the wharf in Boston and peering up at a crowded deck above him, saw
the face of his grandson, that face which he had never expected to see
again, looking eagerly down upon him.
A few more weeks and it was over. The brief interval of camp life and
the mustering out were things of the past. Captain Lote and Albert,
seated in the train, were on their way down the Cape, bound home. Home!
The word had a significance now which it never had before. Home!
Albert drew a long breath. “By George!” he exclaimed. “By George,
Grandfather, this looks good to me!”
It might not have looked as good to another person. It was raining, the
long stretches of salt marsh were windswept and brown and bleak. In the
distance Cape Cod Bay showed gray and white against a leaden sky. The
drops ran down the dingy car windows.
Captain Zelotes understood, however. He nodded.
“It used to look good to me when I was bound home after a v'yage,” he
observed. “Well, son, I cal'late your grandma and Rachel are up to the
depot by this time waitin' for you. We ain't due for pretty nigh an hour
yet, but I'd be willin' to bet they're there.”
Albert smiled. “My, I do want to see them!” he said.
“Shouldn't wonder a mite if they wanted to see you, boy. Well, I'm kind
of glad I shooed that reception committee out of the way. I presumed
likely you'd rather have your first day home to yourself--and us.”
“I should say so! Newspaper reporters are a lot of mighty good fellows,
but I hope I never see another one. . . . That's rather ungrateful, I
know,” he added, with a smile, “but I mean it--just now.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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