All this was rolling through my memory as I breakfasted at the Universe
and considered the telegram from Eastridge.
"Do you remember promise?" Of course I remembered. Was it likely that
either of us would forget a thing like that? We were in the dingy
little room that he called his "den"; it was just after the birth of
his third child. I had told my plan of letting the staff of The Banner
fall into other hands and going out into the world to study the nations
when they were not excited by war, and write about people who were not
disguised in soldier-clothes. "That's a big plan," he said, "and you'll
go far, and be long away at times." I admitted that it was likely.
"Well," he continued, laying down his pipe, "if you ever are in trouble
and can't get back here, send word, and I'll come." I told him that
there was little I could do for him or his (except to give superfluous
advice), but if they ever needed me a word would bring me to them. Then
I laid down my pipe, and we stood up in front of the fire and shook
hands. That was all the promise there was; but it brought him down to
Panama to get me, five years later, when I was knocked out with the
fever; and it would take me back to Eastridge now by the first train.
But what wasteful brevity in that phrase, "much needed"! What did that
mean? (Why will a man try to put a forty-word meaning into a ten-word
telegram?) Sickness? Business troubles? One of those independent,
interfering children in a scrape? One thing I was blessedly sure of: it
did not mean any difficulty between Cyrus and his wife; they were of
the tribe who marry for love and love for life.
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