Chapter I: Front Matter

_The_
VINEGAR
SAINT

_By_
HUGHES MEARNS
_Author of_ “RICHARD RICHARD”

_Illustrated by_
RALPH L. BOYER

THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1919

COPYRIGHT
1919 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY

The Vinegar Saint

TO
FAGLEY

“_Some_one must keep watch lest the Heavens fall!”
--_The Vinegar Saint._

POSTSCRIPT

(_For aren’t all prefaces really postscripts?_)

This chronicle of Gorgas and her friends was within sight of the end when out of Germany came the incredible news of war. Twenty-five years earlier Bardek had fought “the big Austrian” because “he had spoke against the French”; all of which the present scribe had duly writ down, but only as one tells of ancient passions or historic loves and hates. Who, outside of unspeakable Germany, was prepared for the shock of the world war? Then, when our own boys were moving across the seas--just because one had “spoke against the French”--the history of Gorgas and the Vinegar Saint was put aside, along with other matter that we once thought important; and the present historian was standing reveille, watch and guard on a scrubby hill leagues from home. Finally comes the collapse of the mad German dream, as abruptly as it began, and things of peace and sanity emerge, including this story of the Vinegar Saint.

Well, good is good, and evil is evil; and there is to be no compromise nor confusion of the two. Such is the conclusion of the victory just accomplished--which is only what the Vinegar Saint had contended all along! It did not seem to need a world war to prove so true a truth.

* * * * *

The chronicler cannot resist giving Captain “Chuck” Williams’ account of a late meeting with Bardek. Slim and spruce he was; clean shaven--to prevent the white stubble from giving his years away; a major in the brilliant full dress of the French, one of that gay band, veterans all, who visited America during the early days of our entrance into the conflict. It was a leaden, characterless April day--a perfect “Deutschertag”--but he was spluttering French like a Roman candle. “Chuck” burst into the group, clicked heels and saluted profoundly. “Bardek!” he shouted, grasping his hands. “You old grandfather! What in the name of poetry are _you_ doing in uniform!” The rogue! He was sixty years old if a day, but had got himself up like a youngster of thirty.

He wrung “Chuck’s” hands with the old-time fervor, rattling a half-dozen medals on his breast, but his face remained a pantomime of inquiry, puzzledom and willingness to please any lunatic in the uniform of the U.S.A. Turning limply to a brother he begged a translation; then replied gravely, in French, “One is never too old to fight for France”; and added, “I am sorry that in my youth I did not pay attention to my teachers and thus learn to speak your beautiful English. Alas!”--a delectable shrug--“I know but French.”

“You are Bardek--” “Chuck” began. “Bardek!” echoed the major. “You know me, then?” The shoulders lifted slightly. “Bardek, _c’est vraiment moi_! Bardek! _C’est ça! Commandant! Soixante-dixsept régiment!!_” The shoulders went higher and prouder with each phrase, his whole suite following him in exact imitation. “_Tr-r-oisième bataillon!!! Chasseur a pied!!!!_” But the proud picture soon dissolved in swift laughter. “At the service of _m’sieu’ le capitaine_,” he bowed. “_Le commandant_ is complimented that _m’sieu’ le capitaine_ should remember his acquaintance. We have perhaps met in France?”

“It was in America, Bardek!” Captain Williams insisted. “Don’t try any of your infernal jokes on me. It was in Cresheim Valley! At Mount Airy! And what’s all this nonsense about not knowing English!”

Bardek waited patiently for the interpreter to make the speech into French. “It was perhaps my grandfather,” he shrugged politely. “America I do not know. Always,” he touched his heart lightly, “always I have lived in France.” And from that he could not be budged.

Nevertheless, he ate the captain’s luncheon, he and his gay “devils”--“Chuck” was the envy of the whole restaurant--meanwhile telling him, in a French which was painfully slowed up for foreign ears, all the news of all the world. There were staccato, rapid-fire asides, to be sure, which drew roars from his companions; but he would not step out of the rôle of Frenchman. Many times he repeated, with varying grades of fervor, “Always I have lived in France!”

At “Chuck’s” final handshake, however, he relented. “_Vive la France!_” said “Chuck,” gripping him hard. “_La Fr-r-rance!_” growled Bardek. They shook hands ferociously. Then the major leaned over--“Chuck” thought he was about to be kissed!--to whisper solemnly in his ear, “And you will give my loave to ol’ Mack, if he be still alive, an’ to the Professor, and to the good Goargass, and you will tell her to be vair-r-y care-ful of herself. She is now too ol’ a woman to go splashing in rivers when it is yet April!”

He left in a storm of basso laughter.
H. M.

Fort McHenry,
Maryland, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

THE GOLDEN CHILD

CHAPTER PAGE

I LEGS 11

II GYPSIES! 29

III THE OLD PAPER-MILL 39

IV “THAT NOT IMPOSSIBLE SHE” 46

V BARDEK 59

VI LIBERTÉ, EGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ 72

VII A “FRENCH DAY” AT NIGHT 85

VIII “MY THEORY IS--” 98

IX “BONG-JOUR” 110

X HONORIFICABILITUDINITATIBUS 123

BOOK TWO

THE HIDDEN RIVER

XI SIXTEEN 143

XII MIXED RENDEZVOUS 152

XIII TOPIC NUMBER FOUR 165

XIV A MORRIS DAY 180

XV THE LADY OF THE INTERRUPTION 195

BOOK THREE

THE CALL TO BE FREE

XVI RATS! 221

XVII AN UNEXPECTED BINGLE 233

XVIII A PARABLE OF IGNORANCE 249

XIX TOBOGGANING 261

XX A CONNOISSEUR OF JOY 278

XXI EVE’S CHOICE 292

XXII TOP-O’-THE-HILL 302

BOOK FOUR

CANAAN

XXIII MY LORD AND EKE MY MASTER 323

XXIV THE HOLD-UP 331

XXV DAGO 339

XXVI THE BIOLOGIST AND THE PURITAN 353

XXVII TZOO-OOM! 368

XXVIII THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS 385

XXIX “STRAIGHT! STRAIGHT! STRAIGHT! STRAIGHT!” 401

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

She stood watching _Frontispiece_

“It looks almost finished” 67

“I am loafing my life away” 161

“Top-o’-the-Hill” 343