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The Trumpeter Swan by Temple Bailey
page 57 of 363 (15%)
lamp high up, but she could not reach it, so she always carried a
candle. She set it down on the case where the Bob-whites were cuddled
in brown groups. She whistled a note, and listened to catch the
answer. It had been a trick of hers as a child, and she had heard them
whistle in response. She had been so sure that she heard them--a
far-off silvery call----

Well, why not? Might not their little souls be fluttering close? "You
darlings," she said aloud.

Randy, arriving at that moment on the threshold, heard her. "You are
playing the old game," he said.

"Oh, yes,", she caught her breath, "Do you remember?"

He came into the room. "I remembered a thousand times when I was in
France. I thought of this room and of the Trumpeter Swan, and of how
you and I used to listen on still nights and think we heard him.
There was one night after an awful day--with a moon like this over the
battlefield, and across the moon came a black, thin streak--and a bugle
sounded--far away. I was half asleep, and I said, 'Becky, there's the
swan,' and the fellow next to me poked his elbow in my ribs, and said,
'You're dreaming.' But I wasn't--quite, for the thin black streak was
a Zeppelin----"

She came up close to him and laid her hand on his arm. He towered
above her. "Randy," she asked, "was the war very dreadful?"

"Yes," he said, "it was. More dreadful than you people at home can
ever grasp. But I want you to know this, Becky, that there isn't one
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