Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/23

 orchards almost with distaste. He was so tired. The air was sickeningly sweet with the penetrant and enduring perfume. He thought with impatience that he would be glad if his eyes might rest upon some spot where a blood red flare would not strike them to bitter memory, for persistently around the rocks of the mountain-side, close to the spots of cultivation in which each tree was rooted, there blazed the flame of the Indian Warrior. So he had at last dragged up the driveway and up the front steps where he had done a thing that was not customary.

All the grounds and the side verandas were for the men, but disabled soldiers were not supposed to drape themselves over the reed davenports near the big entrance doors. There happened to be a davenport standing under a broad window at one side of the entrance that offered him the first solution of a resting place. He glanced at several automobiles he did not recognize as he climbed the steps; then he headed straight for the lounge and stretched himself on it, where for a time he lay unconscious of what was going on around him.

As he became rested, voices on the inside of the window at first were only voices, and then, as his heart quieted and the burning in his side eased and his tired limbs relaxed, he realized that name after name was being read from a list and each name represented a man whose case was being discussed and what was eventually to become of him was being decided upon. But he had not realized as they went down the J’s and the K’s and the L’s that M was coming soon. He had been in the hospital so