Boy of My Heart. Marie Connor Leighton

tion>

       Marie Connor Leighton

      Boy of My Heart

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066137151

Table of Contents

       A FOREWORD

       PATRIOTISM

       PART I

       CHAPTER I WAITING

       CHAPTER II THE EXTRAVAGANT BABY

       CHAPTER III THE FIRST STEPS OF THE LITTLE FEET

       CHAPTER IV THE BOY'S TREASURES AND OTHER THINGS

       CHAPTER V GOOD DAYS AND GOOD NIGHTS

       CHAPTER VI PASSING SHADOWS

       CHAPTER VII A MOTTO TO STEER BY

       PART II THE TWO GERMAN GIFTS

       CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST GERMAN GIFT—A ROSE

       CHAPTER IX THE WAY OF A BROTHER

       CHAPTER X THE FEEDING OF LOVE

       CHAPTER XI THE ANGER OF LOVE

       CHAPTER XII IN THE DANGER ZONE

       CHAPTER XIII THE SECOND GERMAN GIFT

A FOREWORD

       Table of Contents

      The Publishers wish to state that this is a book of absolute fact—not a work of fiction. From cover to cover it is the truth, and the truth only—a record exact and faithful, both in large things and in small, of the short years of a boy who willingly and even joyously gave up his life and all its brilliant promise for the sake of his country.

      Even the tragic coincidence of the news of his death reaching his home in the very hour in which he himself was expected there on leave, is what actually occurred.

PATRIOTISM

       Table of Contents

      "It is not a song in the street, and a wreath on a column, and a flag flying from a window and a pro-Boer under a pump. It is a thing very holy and very terrible, like life itself. It is a burden to be borne; a thing to labour for and to suffer for and to die for; a thing which gives no happiness and no pleasantness … but a hard life, an unknown grave, and the respect and bared heads of those who follow."—John Masefield.

      (Quotation found written in a notebook in the pocket of "Little Yeogh Wough" when he received his death wound, Dec. 23rd, 1915.)

PART I

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I WAITING

       Table of Contents

      It is half-past nine o'clock at night and I, an eager-hearted woman, sit waiting still for dinner, with a letter open before me from my son in the fighting line. It is addressed to me in his pet name for me:—

      France, 10.12.15.

      Dearest Big Yeogh Wough—

      I feel very distressed about a sentence in a letter of Vera's that arrived a few minutes ago. I have been away from my battalion for nearly ten days now, and in consequence all my correspondence is waiting for me there and cannot be sent on because they don't know where I am precisely, and couldn't very well send over here if they did. The letter that came this evening was addressed: "Attached 1st—— Light Infantry," and must have been sent on the chance of reaching me. In it Vera says that you seem changed since she saw you last—rather anxious, and worn, and very tired. I am quite at sea as to when and how she saw you, but gather from the context that she must have been down to Sunny Cliff. Is this so? But I do hope that you are not "rather anxious and worn and very tired." It troubles me muchly. Qu'est ce qu'il y a? Is it finances and family navigation; or working too hard; or myself; or what? Please do tell me. Is there anything I can do?

      I seem to be very much cut off from everything and everybody just lately. Sometimes I rather exult in it; sometimes I wonder how much of the old Roland is left. I have learnt much; I have gained much; I have grown up suddenly; I have got to know the ways of the world. But there is a poem of Verlaine's that I remember sometimes:

      "O, qu'as tu fait, toi que voilà,

      Pleurant sans cesse?

      Dis, qu'as tu fait, toi que voilà,

      De ta jeunesse?"

      As I told you last week, I hope to be coming over again to see you soon—quite soon, in fact. Those words of Vera's, though, have troubled me much.

      Meanwhile,

       Very much love to Father and The Bystander,

      Always your devoted,

       L. Y. W.

      P.S. (a day later).—Have got leave from the 24th to the 31st. Shall land on the 25th.

      Such a very wistful letter! It is the saddest, I think, that I have ever had from him. But, oh! what the postscript means to me!

      Land on the 25th!

      Our home—this house in which I am waiting—is very near the coast. It is not exactly at the spot where he must land, but it ought not to take him more than an hour or an hour and a half to get here. And yet it is half-past nine at night on the 25th, and I and the dinner are still waiting!

      There are others waiting, too. They sat in this room with me at first, but they got restless and now they are in different parts of the house, trying to do other things while they wait.

      It is so useless trying to do other things when one waits for a really important thing