Booth Tarkington

“ Milla gave Ramsey's arm, within her own, a little tug. “Come on,” she said. “Sade says she don't want to hang around here any longer. It's awful tiresome. Let's go.”
He consented, placidly. The oration meant nothing to him and stirred no one in the audience. The orator was impassioned; he shouted himself into coughing fits, gesticulated, grew purple; he was so hot that his collar caved in and finally swooned upon his neck in soggy exhaustion, prostrate round his thunderings. Meanwhile, the people listened with an air of patience, yawning here and there, and gradually growing fewer. ”

“ Fred settled himself upon the window seat with a pipe, and proceeded, “There's something about her, when she stands there, she stands so straight and knows just what she's up to, and everything, why, there's something about her makes the cold chills go down your spine—I mean my spine, not yours particularly! You sit down—I mean anybody's spine, doggone it!” And as Ramsey increased the manifestations of his suspicions, lifting a tennis racket over the prostrate figure, “Oh, murder,” Fred said, resignedly. ”

“ Brothers, don't you realize that all over the United States to-night the people are feeling just the way we are here? Millions and millions and millions of them! Wherever there's an American he's with us—and you bet your bottom dollar there are just a few more Americans in this country of ours than there are big-mouthed lobsters like that fellow Linski! I tell you, if Congress only gives the word, there could be an army of five million men in this country to-morrow, and those dirty baby-killin' dachshunds would hear a word or two from your Uncle Samuel! ”

“ Yet our being against slavery was what made the war, and we had the consciousness that we were on the side of God's plan, because His plan is clearly the Freedom of Man. Long ago we began to see the hints of His plan—a little like the way you can see what's coming in August from what happens in April, but man has to win his freedom from himself—men in the light have to fight against men in the dark of their own shadow. ”

“ And his grandfather laughed again. “You mean: If the Rebels felt just as sure of winning the war as we did, and kept winning battles why shouldn't we ever have had any doubts that we were going to win? That's it, isn't it?”
“I guess so, Grandpa.”
“Well, I think it was mostly because we were certain that we were right.”
“I see,” said Ramsey. “The Rebels knew they were on the side of the Devil.” But at this, the grandfather's laugh was louder than it had been before, and Ramsey looked hurt. “Well, you can laugh if you want to!” he objected in an aggrieved voice. ”

“ I was wrong, because war isn't the worst evil. Slavery is the worse evil, and now I want to tell you I have come to see that you are making war on those that make slavery. Yes, you are fighting those that make both war and slavery, and you are right, and I humbly reverence and honour all of you who are in this right war. ”

“ Fred Mitchell, ever volatile and generous, was one of those who went quite wild. No orator, he nevertheless made a frantic speech at the week's “frat meetings,” cursing the Germans in the simple old English words that their performance had demonstrated to be applicable, and going on to demand that the fraternity prepare for its own share in the action of the country. “I don't care how insignificant we few fellows here to-night may seem,” he cried; “we can do our little, and if everybody in this country's ready to do their own little, why, that'll be plenty! ”

“ He made her admit all the Germans have done to us, the sea murders and the land murders, the blowing up of the factories, the propaganda, the strikes, trying to turn the United States into a German settlement, trying to get Japan and Mexico to make war on us, and all the rest. He even made her admit there was proof they mean to conquer us when they get through with the others, and that they've set out to rule the world for their own benefit, and make whoever else they kindly allow to live, to work for them. ”

“ We knew the struggle and suffering of our fathers and grandfathers to make a great country here for Freedom, and we knew that all this wasn't just the whim of a foolish god, willing to waste such great things—we knew that such a country couldn't have been building up just to be wasted. But, more than that, we knew that armies fighting for the Freedom of Man had to win, in the long run, over armies that fought for what they considered their rights. ”

“ Perhaps the great opportunity might have arrived if Ramsey had been able to achieve a startling importance in any of the “various divergent yet parallel lines of school endeavour”—one of the phrases by means of which teachers and principal clogged the minds of their unarmed auditors. But though he was far from being the dumb driven beast of misfortune that he seemed in the schoolroom, and, in fact, lived a double life, exhibiting in his out-of-school hours a remarkable example of “secondary personality”—a creature fearing nothing and capable of laughter ”

“ There are so few of us among the undergraduates—and only one in the whole faculty. All the rest are for war. But we mustn't give up; we must never feel afterward that we left anything undone; we must fight to the last breath!”
“'Fight'?” he repeated wonderingly, then chuckled.
“Oh, as a figure of speech,” she said, impatiently. “Our language is full of barbaric figures left over from the dark ages. But, oh, Ramsey!”—she touched his sleeve—“I've heard that Fred Mitchell is saying that he's going to Canada after Easter, to try to get into the Canadian aviation corps. ”

“ A war thought is the most contagious thought in the world; but if it can be kept from starting, it can be kept from being contagious. It's just when people have got into an emotional state, or a state of smouldering rage, that everybody ought to be so terribly careful not to think war thoughts or make war speeches—or send war telegrams! ”

“ And I think perhaps you're right about Fred Mitchell. Talk isn't everything, nobody knows that better than I, who talk so much! and I think that, instead of talking to Fred, a steady, quiet influence like yours would do more good than any amount of arguing. So I trust you, you see? And I'm sorry I had that queer doubt of you.” She held out her hand. “Unless I happen to see you on the campus for a minute, in the meantime, it's good-bye until a week from to-day. So—well, so, good-bye until then!”
“Wait,” said Ramsey. ”

“ She said she knew from the way she felt herself about the Lusitania that a feeling like that in her would never be absolutely wiped out as long as she lived. But she said her other feeling about the horribleness of war taught her to keep the first feeling from breaking out, but with other people it wouldn't; and even if war didn't break out right then, it would always be ready to, all over the country, and sometime it would, though she was goin' to do her share to fight it, herself, as long as she could stand. ”

“ So, too, do nervous children seek to bury their eyes under pillows, and nervous statesmen theirs under oratory. Ramsey's ostrichings can happen to anybody. But finally the brightness of the sky between the leaves settled matters for him; he sneezed, wept, and for a little moment again faced his fellowmen. No one was looking at him; everybody except Milla had other things to do.
Having sneezed involuntarily, he added a spell of coughing for which there was no necessity. “I guess I must be wrong,” he muttered thickly.
“What about, Ramsey?”
“About it bein' a squirrel.” ”

“ Already half the world is full of war; you want to go to war to make things right, but it won't; it will only make more war!”
“Well, I—”
“Don't you see what you've done, you boys?” she said. “Don't you see what you've done with your absurd telegram? That started the rest; they thought they all had to send telegrams like that.”
“Well, the faculty—”
“Even they mightn't have thought of it if it hadn't been for the first one. Vengeance is the most terrible thought; once you put it into people's minds that they ought to have it, it runs away with them.” ”

“ What I meant was that we shouldn't be quite so much distressed by your being seen with a girl who dressed in better taste and seemed to have some notion of refinement, though of course it's only natural she wouldn't, with a father who is just a sort of ward politician, I understand, and a mother we don't know, and of course shouldn't care to. But, oh, Ramsey! if you had to make yourself so conspicuous why couldn't you be a little bit more fastidious? Your father wouldn't have minded nearly so much if it had been a self-respecting, intellectual girl. ”

“ He would see an old man sitting with a little boy upon a rustic bench under a walnut tree to watch the “Decoration Day Parade” go by—and Ramsey would see a shoot of sunshine that had somehow got through the walnut tree and made a bedazzlement of glinting fine lines over a spot about the size of a saucer, upon the old man's thick white hair. ”

“ I didn't even mention the name of Dora Yo— Keep off o' me! My goodness, but you are sensitive!”
As a matter of fact, neither of them saw Dora until the first meeting of the Lumen, whither they went as sophomores to take their pleasure in the agony of freshmen debaters. Ramsey was now able to attend the Lumen, not with complacence but at least without shuddering over the recollection of his own spectacular first appearance there. He had made subsequent appearances, far from brilliant yet not disgraceful, and as a spectator, at least, he usually felt rather at his ease in the place. ”

“ Now and then Albert would row a few strokes, and at almost any time when the populated shore glanced toward them, Sadie would be seen photographing Albert, or Albert would be seen photographing Sadie, but the tennis racket remained an enigma. Oarsman and passenger appeared to have no conversation whatever—not once was either seen or heard to address a remark to the other; and they looked as placid as their own upside-down reflections in one of the still pools they slowly floated over. They were sixteen, and had been “engaged” more than two years. ”

“ Finally he uttered words.
“I—I—well, I—”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “A man—or a boy!—always hates to be intruding his own convictions upon other men, especially in a case like this, where he might be afraid of some idiot's thinking him unmanlike. But Ramsey—” Suddenly she broke off and looked at him attentively; his discomfort had become so obvious that suspicion struck her. She spoke sharply. “Ramsey you aren't dreaming of doing such a thing, are you?”
“What such a thing?”
“Fred hasn't influenced you, has he? You aren't planning to go with him, are you?” ”

“ Nevertheless, as they slowly went on together, Ramsey was embarrassed. He felt “queer.” They had known each other so long; in a way had shared so much, sitting daily for years near each other and undergoing the same outward experiences; they had almost “grown up together,” yet this was the first time they had ever talked together or walked together.
“Well—” he said. “If you want to ask anything it's all right for me to tell you—well, I just as soon, I guess.”
“It has nothing to do with the secret proceedings of your 'frat',” said Dora, primly. ”

“ Don't you wish they'd quit, sometimes, about the 'Ole Flag'?”
“I dunno,” said Milla. “I wasn't listening any at all. I hate speeches.”
“Well, I could stand 'em,” Ramsey said, more generously, “if they'd ever give anybody a little to think about. What's the use always draggin' in George Warshington and the Ole Flag? And who wants to hear any more ole truck about 'from ole rocky New England to golden California,' and how big and fine the United States is and how it's the land of the Free and all that? Why don't they ever say anything new? ”

“ Evidently the meeting was about to disintegrate. “I'll have my say!” the frenzied Linski screamed. “You try to put up this capitalis' trick and work a fake to carry over this debate agains' Choimuny, but you can't work it on me, lemme tell you! I'll have my say!”
The outraged chairman was wholly at a loss how to deal with the “unprecedented situation”—so he defined it, quite truthfully; and he continued to pound upon the desk, while other clamours began to rival Linski's; shouts of “Put him out!” “Order!” “Shut up, Freshman!” “Turn him over to the sophomores!” ”

“ Wesley hotly returned. “Everybody that hasn't got any more decency than to go around mentioning ladies' names on the public streets. Everybody that goes around mentioning ladies' names on the public streets are pups!”
“They are, are they?” Ramsey as hotly demanded. “Well, you just look here a minute; my own father mentions my mother's name on the public streets whenever he wants to, and you just try callin' my father a pup, and you won't know what happened to you!” ”