The five elm trees held up their skirts above the high corn. The flat
surface of the corn-tops was still. Hot glassy air quivered like a thin
steam over the brimming field.
The glazed yellow walls of the old nursery gave out a strong light and
heat. The air indoors was dry and smelt dusty like the hot, crackling air
above the corn. The children had come in from their play in the fields;
they leaned out of the windows and talked about what they were going to
be.
Mary said, "I shall paint pictures and play the piano and ride in a
circus. I shall go out to the countries where the sand is and tame
zebras; and I shall marry Mark and have thirteen children with blue eyes
like Meta."
Roddy was going to be the captain of a cruiser. Dan was going to Texas,
or some place where Papa couldn't get at him, to farm. Mark was going to
be a soldier like Marshal McMahon.
It was Grandpapa and Grandmamma's fault that he was not a soldier now.
"If," he said, "they'd let Papa marry Mamma when he wanted to, I might
have been born in eighteen fifty-two. I'd be eighteen by this time. I
should have gone into the French Army and I should have been with McMahon
at Sedan now."
"You might have been killed," Mary said.
"That wouldn't have mattered a bit. I should have been at Sedan. Nothing
matters, Minky, as long as you get what you want."
"If you were killed Mamma and me would die, too, the same minute. Papa
would be sorry, then; but not enough to kill him, so that we should go to
heaven together without him and be happy."
"Mamma wouldn't be happy without him. We couldn't shut him out."
"No," Mary said; "but we could pray to God not to let him come up too
soon."