Gaslight Sonatas. Fannie Hurst
their ambitions, their unselfishness. That's what war can do for your men, you women who are helping them to foster the spirit of holding back, of cheating their government. That's what war can do for your men. Make of them the kind of men who some day can face their children without having to hang their heads. Men who can answer for their part in making the world a safe place for democracy."
An hour they stood there, the air quieting but chilling, and lavishly sown stars cropping out. Street lights had come out, too, throwing up in ever darker relief the figure above the heads of the crowd. His voice had coarsened and taken on a raw edge, but every gesture was flung from the socket, and from where they had forced themselves into the tight circle Gertie Slayback, her mouth fallen open and her head still back, could see the sinews of him ripple under khaki and the diaphragm lift for voice.
There was a shift of speakers then, this time a private, still too rangy, but his looseness of frame seeming already to conform to the exigency of uniform.
"Come on, Jimmie. I—I'm cold."
They worked out into the freedom of the sidewalk, and for ten minutes, down blocks of petty shops already lighted, walked in a silence that grew apace.
He was suddenly conscious that she was crying, quietly, her handkerchief wadded against her mouth. He strode on with a scowl and his head bent. "Let's sit down in this little park, Jimmie. I'm tired."
They rested on a bench on one of those small triangles of breathing space which the city ekes out now and then; mill ends of land parcels.
He took immediately to roving the toe of his shoe in and out among the gravel. She stole out her hand to his arm.
"Well, Jimmie?" Her voice was in the gauze of a whisper that hardly left her throat.
"Well, what?" he said, still toeing.
"There—there's a lot of things we never thought about, Jimmie."
"Aw!"
"Eh, Jimmie?"
"You mean you never thought about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I know what I mean alrighty."
"I—I was the one that suggested it, Jimmie, but—but you fell in. I—I just couldn't bear to think of it, Jimmie—your going and all. I suggested it, but—but you fell in."
"Say, when a fellow's shoved he falls. I never gave a thought to sneaking an exemption until it was put in my head. I'd smash the fellow in the face that calls me coward, I will."
"You could have knocked me down with a feather, Jimmie, looking at it his way all of a sudden."
"You couldn't knock me down. Don't think I was ever strong enough for the whole business. I mean the exemption part. I wasn't going to say anything. What's the use, seeing the way you had your heart set on—on things? But the whole business, if you want to know it, went against my grain. I'll smash the fellow in the face that calls me coward."
"I know, Jimmie; you—you're right. It was me suggested hurrying things like this. Sneakin'! Oh, God! ain't I the messer-up!"
"Lay easy, girl. I'm going to see it through. I guess there's been fellows before me and will be after me who have done worse. I'm going to see it through. All I got to say is I'll smash up the fellow calls me coward. Come on, forget it. Let's go."
She was close to him, her cheek crinkled against his with the frank kind of social unconsciousness the park bench seems to engender.
"Come on, Gert. I got a hunger on."
'"Shh-h-h, Jimmie! Let me think. I'm thinking."
"Too much thinking killed a cat. Come on."
"Jimmie!"
"Huh?"
"Jimmie—would you—had you ever thought about being a soldier?"
"Sure. I came in an ace of going into the army that time after—after that little Central Street trouble of mine. I've got a book in my trunk this minute on military tactics. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see me land in the army some day."
"It's a fine thing, Jimmie, for a fellow—the army."
"Yeh, good for what ails him."
She drew him back, pulling at his shoulder so that finally he faced her.
"Jimmie!"
"Huh?"
"I got an idea."
"Shoot."
"You remember once, honey-bee, how I put it to you that night at Ceiner's how, if it was for your good, no sacrifice was too much to make."
"Forget it."
"You didn't believe it."
"Aw, say now, what's the use digging up ancient history?"
"You'd be right, Jimmie, not to believe it. I haven't lived up to what I said."
"Oh Lord, honey! What's eating you now? Come to the point."
She would not meet his eyes, turning her head from him to hide lips that would quiver. "Honey, it—it ain't coming off—that's all. Not now—anyways."
"What ain't?"
"Us."
"Who?"
"You know what I mean, Jimmie. It's like everything the soldier boy on the corner just said. I—I saw you getting red clear behind your ears over it. I—I was, too, Jimmie. It's like that soldier boy was put there on that corner just to show me, before it was too late, how wrong I been in every one of my ways. Us women who are helping to foster slackers. That's what we're making of them—slackers for life. And here I been thinking it was your good I had in mind, when all along it's been mine. That's what it's been, mine!"
"Aw, now, Gert—"
"You got to go, Jimmie. You got to go, because you want to go and—because
I want you to go."
"Where?"
"To war."
He took hold of her two arms because they were trembling. "Aw, now, Gert, I didn't say anything complaining. I—"
"You did, Jimmie, you did, and—and I never was so glad over you that you did complain. I just never was so glad. I want you to go, Jimmie. I want you to go and get a man made out of you. They'll make a better job out of you than ever I can. I want you to get the yellow streak washed out. I want you to get to be all the things he said you would. For every line he was talking up there, I could see my boy coming home to me some day better than anything I could make out of him, babying him the way I can't help doing. I could see you, honey-bee, coming back to me with the kind of lift to your head a fellow has when he's been fighting to make the world a safe place for dem—for whatever it was he said. I want you to go, Jimmie. I want you to beat the draft, too. Nothing on earth can make me not want you to go."
"Why, Gert—you're kiddin'!"
"Honey, you want to go, don't you? You want to square up those shoulders and put on khaki, don't you? Tell me you want to go!"
"Why—why, yes, Gert, if—"
"Oh, you're going, Jimmie! You're going!"
"Why, girl—you're crazy! Our flat! Our furniture—our—"
"What's a flat? What's furniture? What's anything? There's not a firm in business wouldn't take back a boy's furniture—a boy's everything—that's going out to fight for—for dem-o-cracy! What's a flat? What's anything?"
He let drop his head to hide his eyes.
Do you know it is said that on the Desert of Sahara, the slope of Sorrento, and the marble of Fifth Avenue the sun can shine whitest? There is an iridescence to its glittering on bleached sand, blue bay, and Carrara façade that