an affronted elbow, the corners of her mouth quivering slightly,
possibly of their own richness. They were dewy, fruit-like lips,
as if Nature were smiling with them at her own handiwork.
"Say, somebody around here better look where he's going or mama's
khaki-boy will be calling for an arnica high-ball. What does he
think I yam, the six o'clock subway rush?"
Miss Elaine Vavasour wound down the spiral ahead of Miss De Voe,
the pink satin blouse already in the removing.
"Go suck a quince Blos. It's good for crazy bone and fallen arch."
"If you was any funnier, Elaine, you'd float," said Miss De Voe
withdrawing a hair pin as she wound downward, an immediate avalanche
of springy curls released.
Beneath the stage of the Gotham Theater a corridor of dressing rooms
ran the musty subterranean length of the sub cellar. A gaseous
gloomy dampness here; this cave of the purple lidded, so far below
the level of reality.
At the door of Miss De Voe's eight by ten, shared by four, dressing
room, one of the back drop of privates, erect, squarebacked, head
thrown up by the deep-dipping cap vizor, emerged at sight of her,
lifted hat revealing a great permanent wave of hair that could only
be born not bought.
"H'lo, Hal."
"Hello, Blossum."
"Whose hot water bottle did you come to borrow?"
"Hot water bottle?"
"Yeh, you look like you got the double pneumonia and each one of
the pneumonia's got the tooth ache. Who stole your kite, ikkie
boy?"
Mr. Hal Sanderson flung up a fine impatient head, the permanent
hair-wave lifting,
"We'll can the comedy, Blossum," he said.
She lowered to a mock curtsey, mouth skewed to control laughter,
arms akimbo.
"We will now sing psalm twenty-three."
"Come to supper with me, Blos? You been dodging me pretty steady
here lately."
She clapped her hand to her brow, plastering a curl there.
"Migaw, I am now in the act of dropping thirty cents and ten cents
tip into my Pig Bank. Will I go to supper with him? Say, darling,
will the Hudson flow by Grant's monument to-night at twelve? On
a Saturday matinée he asks me to supper with a question mark."
"Honest, Bloss, you'd hand a fellow a ha ha if he invited you to
his funeral."
She sobered at that, leaning against the cold plastered wall,
winding one of the shining curls about her fore finger.
"What's the matter--Hal?"
He handed her a torn newspaper sheet, blue penciled.
She took it but did not glance down.
"Drafted?"
"Yes," he said.
The voice of a soubrette trilling snatches of her topical song as
she creamed off her make-up, came to them through the sulky gloom
of the corridor. Behind the closed door of Miss De Voe's dressing
room, the gabble of the pink satin ponies was like hash in the
chopping. Overhead, moving scenery created a remote sort of thunder.
She stood looking up at him, her young mouth parted.
"I--oh, Hal--well--well, whatta you know about that--Hal
Sanderson--drafted."
He stepped closer, the pallor coming out stronger in his face,
enclosed her wrist, pressing it.
"Grover's drafted too."
"Grover--too?"
"He's three thousand and one. Ten numbers before me."
Her irises were growing, blackening.
"Well, whatta you know about that? Grover White, the world's dancing
tenor, and Hal Sanderson the world dancing tenor's understudy,
drafted! The little tin soldiers are covered with rust and Uncle
Sam is going to--"
"Hurry, Bloss, get into your duds. I want to talk. Hurry. We'll
eat over at Ramy's."
She turned but flung out an arm, grasping now his wrist.
"I--oh, Hal--I--I just never was so--so sad and so--so glad!"
The door opened to a slit enclosing her. In his imitation uniform,
hand on empty carriage belt, Mr. Hal Sanderson stood there a moment,
his face whitening, tightening.
In Ramy's glorified basement, situated in one of the Forties which
flow like tributaries into the heady waters of Broadway, one may
dine from soup to nuts, raisins and regrest for one hour and sixty
cents. In Ramy's, courses may come and courses may go, but the
initiated one holds on to his fork forever. Here red wine flows
like water, being ninety-nine per cent., just that.
Across a water tumbler of ruby contents, Miss Blossom De Voe, the
turbulent curls all piled up beneath a slightly dusty but highly
effective amethyst velvet hat, regarded Mr. Sanderson, her perfect
lips trembling as it were, against an actual nausea of the spirit
which seemed to pull at them.
"Whadda you putting things up to me for, Hal? You're old enough
to know your own business."
Blue shaved, too correct in one of Broadway's black and white checked
Campus Suits, his face as cleanly chiseled and thrust forward as a
Discobolus, Mr. Sanderson patted an open letter spread out on the
table cloth between them, his voice rising carefully above the din
of diners.
"There's fellows claiming exemption every hour of the day that
ain't got this much to show, Bloss. I was just wise enough to see
these things and get ready for 'em."
"You ain't your mother's sole support. What about them snapshots
of the two farms of hers out in Ohio you gave me?"
"But I got to be in this country to take charge of her affairs for
her--my mother's old, honey--ain't I the one to manager for her?
Only child and all that. Honest, Bloss, you need a brick house."
"Well, that old lawyer that wrote that letter has been doing it
all the time, why all of a sudden should you--"
He cast his eyes ceilingward, flopping his hands down loosely to
the table in an attitude of mock exhaustion.
"Oh, Lord, Bloss, lemme whistle it, maybe you can catch on the.
Brains, honey, little Hal's brains is what got that letter there
written. I seen this coming from the minute conscription was in
the air. Little Hal seen it coming, and got out his little hatchet.
Try to prove that I ain't the sole one to take charge of my mother's
affairs. Try to prove it. That's what I been fixing for myself
these two months, try to--"
"Sh-h-h-h, Charley--"
"Brains is what done it,--every little thing of my mother's is in
my care. I fixed it. Now little Blossy-blossum will you be good?"
He regarded her with cocked head and face receptive for her approval.
"Now will you be good!"
She sat loosely, meeting his gaze, but her face as relaxed as her
attitude. A wintry stare had set in.
"Oh," she said, "I see." And turned away her head.
He reached closer across the table, regardless of the conglomerate
diners about, felt for her hand which lay limp and cold beside her
plate, and which she withdrew.
"Darling," he said, straining for her gaze.
"Don't, Hal."
"Darling, don't you see? It's fate knocking at our door. There's
not a chance rover can get exemption. He ain't eve got a fifth
cousin or a flat-foot!"
"Maybe he could claim exemption on dandruff."
"I'm serious, honey. It's going to be one of those cases where
an understudy wakes up to find himself famous. I can't fail if I
get this chance, Bloss. It's the moment I have been drudging for,
for five solid years. I never was in such voice as now, I never
was so fit. Not an ounce of fat. Not a song in the part I don't
know backwards. I tell you it's the hand of fate, Bloss, giving
us a hand-out. I can afford now, darling, to make good with you.
On three fifty a week I can ask a little queen like you to double
up with me. From thirty-five to three fifty! I tell you honey,
we're made. I'm going to dress my little dolly in cloth of gold
and silver fox. I'm going to perch her in the suite de luxe of
the swellest hotel in town. I'm--"
She pushed back from the table, turning more broadly from him.
"Don't," she said pressing her kerchief against her lips.
"Why--why what's the matter, Bloss? Why--why, what's the matter?"
"Don't talk to me for a minute," she said, still in profile; "I'll
be all right, only don't talk."
"Why, Bloss, you--sick?"
She shook her head. "No. No."
"You ain't getting cold feet now that we got the thing before us--in
our hand?"
"I dunno. I dunno. I--don't want nothing. That's all, nothing
but to be left alone."
He sucked his lips inward, biting at them.
"Don't--don't think I ain't noticed, Bloss, that you--you ain't
been the same--that you been different--for weeks. Sometimes I
think maybe you're going cold on--on this long engagement stuff.
That's why this thing is breaking just right for us, honey. I
felt you slippin' a little. I'm ready now, Peaches, we can't go
taxi-cabbing down for that license none too soon to suit me."
She shook her head, beating softly with one small fist into her
other palm.
"No, Hal," she said, her mouth tightening and drawing down.
"Why--why, Bloss!"
Suddenly she faced him, her hands both fists now, and coming down
with a force that shivered the china.
"You--you ain't a man, you ain't. You ain't a man, you--you're
a slacker! You're a slacker, that's what you are, and Gawd, how
I--how I hate a slacker!"
"Bloss--why, girl--you--you're cra---"
"Oh, I've known it. Deep down inside of me I've known it since
the day we found ourselves in the mess of this war. I knew it,
and all those months kept kidding myself that maybe--you--wasn't."
"You--"
"Thought maybe when you'd read the newspapers enough and heard the
khaki-boys on the street corners enough, and listened to--to your
country pleading enough that--that you'd rise up to show you was
a man. I knew all these months down inside of me that you was a
slacker, but I kept hopin'. Gawd how I kept hopin'."
"You--you can't talk to me that way! You're---"
"Can't I! Ha! Anybody can talk any old way to a slacker he wants
to and then not say enough. You ain't got no guts you--you're
yellow, that's what you are, you--"
"Blossum!"
"You, sneaking up to me with trumped up exemption stuff when your
country's talking her great heart out for men to stand by 'er!
Gawd! If I was a man--If was a man she wouldn't have to ask me
twice, but before I went marching off I'd take time off to help the
street cleaning department wipe up a few streets with the slackers
I found loafing around under a government they were afraid to fight
for. I'd show 'em. I'd show 'em if a government is good enough
to live under it's good enough to fight under. I'd show 'em."
"If you was a man, Blossum, you'd eat those words. By God, you'd
eat 'em. I'm no coward--I--"
"I know you're not, Hal--that's why I--I--"
"I got the right to decide for myself if I want to fight when I
don't know what I'm fighting for. This ain't my war, this ain't
America's war. Before I fight in it I want a darn sight to know
what I'm fighting for, and not all the street corner rah rah stuff
has told me yet. I ain't a bull to go crazy with a lot of red
waved in my face. I've got no blood to spill in the other fellow's
battle. I'm---"
"No, but you--"
"I'm at a point in my life that I've worked like a dog to reach.
Let the fellows that love the hero stuff give up their arms and
their legs and the breath that's in them for something they don't
know the meaning of. Because some big-gun of a Emperor out in
Austria was assassinated, I ain't going to bleed to death for it.
It's us poor devils that get the least out of the government that
right away are called on to give the most, it's us---"
"Hal, ain't--ain't you ashamed!"
"No. I ain't ashamed and I ain't afraid. You know it ain't because
I'm afraid. I've licked more fellows in my time than most fellows
can boast. I--I got the Fifty-fifth Street fire rescue medal to my
credit if anybody should ask you. I--I--ask anybody from my town
if any kid in it ever licked me. But I ain't going to fight when
I ain't got a grudge against no man. Call that being a coward if
you like, but then you and me don't speak the same language."
Her silence seemed to give off an icy vapor.
"That's what they all say," she said. "It's like hiding behind a
petticoat, hiding behind a defense like that. Sure you ain't got
a grudge. Maybe you don't know what it's all about--God knows who
does. Nobody can deny that. There ain't nothing reasonable about
war, if there was there wouldn't be none. That talk don't get you
nowheres. The proposition is that we're at war, whatever you or
anybody else may think of it."
"That's just it--we didn't have no say-so."
"Just the same, Hal Sanderson, this great big grand country of ours
is at war, and needs you. It ain't what you think any more that
counts. Before we was in war you could talk all you wanted, but
now that we're IN, there's only one thing to do, only one, and not
all your fine talk about peace can change it. One thing to do.
Fight!"
"No government can make me--"
"If you want peace now it's up to you to help make it, a new peace
and a grander peace, not go baying at the moon after a peace that
ain't no more."
"You better get a soap box. If this is the way you got of trying
to get out of something you're sorry for, I'll let you off easier--you
don't need to try to---"
She regarded him with her lips quivering, a quick layer of tears
forming, trembling and venturing to the edge of her lashes.
"Hal--Hal--a--a fellow that I've banked on like I have you! It
ain't that--you know it ain't. I could have waited for ten times
this long. It's only I--I'm ashamed, Hal. Ashamed. there ain't
been a single gap in the chorus from one of the men enlisting that
my heart ain't just dropped in my shoes like dough. I never envied
a girl on my life the way I did Elaine Vavasour when she stood on
the curb at the Battery the other day crying and watching Charlie
Kirkpatrick go marching off. Charlie was a pacifist, too, as long
as the country was out of war, and there was something to argue
about. The minute the question was settled, he shut up, buckled
on his belt and went! That's the kind of a pacifist to be. The
kind of fellow that when he sees peace slipping, buckles on and
starts out for a new peace; a realer peace. That's the kind of a
fellow I thought you--you---"
Her voice broke then abruptly, in a rain of tears, and she raised
the crook of her arm to her face with the gesture of a child.
"That--that's the kind of a fellow I--I---"
His cigarette discarded and curling up in a little column of smoke
between them, he sat regarding her, a heave surge of red rising
above the impeccable white of his collar into the roots of his hair.
It was as if her denouncement had come down in a welt across his
face.
"Nobody ever--nobody ever dared to talk like this to me before.
Nobody ever dared to call me a coward. Nobody. Because it ain't
so!"
"I know it ain't, Hal. If it was could I have been so strong for
you all these months? I knew the way you showed yourself in the
Fifty-fifth Street fire. I read about it in the papers before I
ever knew you. I--I know the way you mauled Ed Stein, twice your
size, the night he tried to--to get fresh with me. I know you
ain't a slacker in your heart, Hal, but I--I couldn't marry a man
that got fake exemption. Couldn't, no matter how it broke my heart
to see him go marching off! Couldn't! Couldn't!"
"That's what it means, Blossum--marching off!"
"I know it, but how--how could I marry a man that wasn't fit to
war his country's uniform even in a show. I--I couldn't marry a
man like that if it meant the solid gold suite in the solid goldest
hotel in this town. I couldn't marry a--a fake khaki-boy!"
"Ain't there no limit, Bloss, to the way you can make a fellow feel
like dirt under your feet? My God! ain't there no limit?"
"There--there's nothing on earth can make a man of you, Hal, nothing
on God's earth but War! Every once in a while there's some little
reason seems to spring up for there bein' a war. You're one of them
reasons, Hal. Down in my heart I know it that you'll come back,
and when I get a hunch it's a hunch! Down in my heart I know it,
dear, that you'll come back to me. But you'll come back a man,
you'll come back with the yellow streak pure gold, you'll-you'll
come back to me pure gold, dear. I know it. I know it."
His head was back as if his throat were open to the stroke of her
words, but there was that growing in his face which was enormous,
translucent, even apogean.
He tore up the paper between them, slowly, and in criss crosses.
"And you, Blossom?" he said, not taking his eyes, with their growing
lights, off her.
"Why, I'll be waiting, Hal," she said, the pink coming out to flood
her face, "I'll be waiting--Sweetheart."
[signed] Fannie Hurst
The Married Slacker
[This is a comic strip in three panels. I'll do my best to describe
each panel and then put the text which comes beneath the panel.]
[Panel 1: A man and woman sit at a meal with pictures of Washington
and Lincoln glowering from the wall in the man's full view behind
the woman. The woman is reading a paper. The man is listening,
but not looking at the woman, rather at his meal in front of him.
A maid brings coffee cups on a platter.]
SHE (reading)--"At 5:15, the barrage was raised, and the Americans
advanced to attack. The long line moved forward like the steady
on-sweep of the tide--unwavering, irresistible, implacable." Oh,
isn't it perfectly wonderful! I knew our men would fight gloriously!
And just listen to this:
[Panel 2: The images of Washington and Lincoln have doubled
in size and the eyes clearly glare at the man. The man now shows
beads of sweat around his head and wears an expression of distress.
The woman continues to read the paper. The maid departs the scene
having delivered the coffee cups.]
SHE (reading)--"The Germans fought desperately but the American
lines never wavered in their onward course. Sometimes the broad
stretch of the battlefield was enveloped in great volumes of smoke,
but a moment later, as the air cleared, the same lines were to
be seen moving onward. At 6:45, the sound of cheering was heard
amidst the din of the battle and a few moments later, the message
was sent back that the American troops had captured the great German
position."
[Panel 3: The images of Washington and Lincoln are now almost
fully the size of the wall and marks of consternation and anger are
clear on their brows as they glare at the man. The woman continues
to read the paper without looking up. The man is fleeing the room
in great haste with his arms in the air. He has knocked over his
chair in his haste and has bumped into the maid who was returning
with a coffee pot and biscuits. The man's face is obscured by
raised hands and his overcoat, but he is clearly fleeing.]
SHE (reading)--"The American victory of yesterday may well mark
the beginning of the end of the war. London and Paris are ringing
with the praises of the American soldiers. President Wilson has
proclaimed a national holiday in celebration of the triumph, and
the American soldier has won imperishable glory as a fighting man."
[The last panel is signed] McCutcheon
Hymn for America
Air: "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled"
Where's the man, in all the earth--
Man of want or man of worth--
Who shall now to rank or birth
Knee of homage bend?
Though he war with chance or fate,
If his heart be free of hate,
If his soul with love be great,
He shall be our friend.
Where's the man, of wealth or wage,
Dare be traitor to his age,
To the people's heritage
Won by war and woe,--
Counting but as private good
All the gain of brotherhood
By the base so long withstood?
He shall be our foe.
Where's the man that does not feel
Freedom as the common weal,
Duty's sword the only steel
Can the battle end?
Comrades, chant in unison
Creed the noblest 'neath the sun:
"One for all and all for one,"
Till each foe be friend.
[signed] Robert Underwood Johnson
The Breaking Out of the Flags
It is April,
And the snow lingers on the dark sides of evergreens;
The grass is brown and soggy
With only a faint, occasional overwash of green.
But under the leafless branches
The white bells of snowdrops are nodding and shaking
Above their green sheaths.
Snow, fir-trees, snowdrops--stem and flower--
Nature offers us only white and green
At this so early springtime.
But man gives more.
Man has unfurled a Nation's flags
Above the city streets;
He has flung a striped and starry symbol of bright colors
Down every curving way.
Blossoms of War,
Blossoms of Suffering,
Strange beautiful flowers of the New Year:
Flags!
Over door lintels and cornices,
Above peaked gables and flat mansard-roofs
Flutter the flags.
The avenues are arcaded with them,
The narrow alleys are bleached with stripes and stars.
For War is declared,
And the people gird themselves
Silently--sternly--
Only the flags make arabesques in the sunshine,
Twining the red of blood and the silver of achievement
Into a gay, waving pattern
Over the awful, unflinching Destiny
Of War.
The flags ripple and jar
To the tramp of marching men,
to the rumble of caissons over cobblestones.
From seaboard to seaboard
And beyond, across the green waves of the sea,
They flap and fly.
Men plant potatoes and click typewriters
In the shadow of them,
And khaki-clad soldiers
Lift their eyes to the garish red and blue
And turn back to their khaki tasks
Refreshed.
America,
The clock strikes.
The spring is upon us,
The seed of our forefathers
Quickens again in the soil,
And these flags are the small, early flowers
Of the solstice of our Hope!
Thru suffering to Peace!
Thru sacrifice to Security!
Red stripes,
Turn us not from our purpose,
Lead us up as by a ladder
To the deep blue quiet
Wherein are shining
The silver stars.
Soldiers, sailors, clerks, and office boys,
Men, and Women--but not children,
No! Not children!
Let these march
With their paper caps and toy rifles
And feel only the panoply of War--
But the others,
Welded and forged,
Seared, melted, broken,
Molded without flaw,
Slowly, faithfully pursuing a Purpose,
A Purpose of Peace,
Even into the very flame of Death.
Over the city,
Over all the cities,
Flutter flags.
Flags of spring,
Flags of burgeoning,
Flags of fulfillment.
[signed] Amy Lowell
Our Day
London, April 20, 1917
It was the evening of our Day; that young April day when in
the solemn vastness of St. Paul's were held the services to mark
America's historic entrance into the Great World War. Across the
mighty arch of the Chancel on either side hung the Stars and Stripes
and the Union Jack.
From the organ pealed those American songs to which half a century
ago, in another war for Freedom, men marched to battle, and, even
if by ways of defeat and death, to ultimate Victory. How many there
were that April day for whom the sight of the Stars and Stripes was
blurred with tears. How the familiar airs and simple words pained
us with the memory of our distant homes. Perhaps for the first
time we understood the solemn significance of this dedication to
war of what we hardly knew was so unspeakably dear.
In the Crypt of St. Paul's, Mausoleum of England's greatest soldier
and sailor heroes, their ashes rest who once fought and conquered.
If it is given to those who have gone before to hear our human
appeal, perhaps the immortal spirits of Nelson, of Wellington, of
Kitchener, whose tragic fate is its unfulfilled destiny, may have
rested like an inspiration on that kindred nation offering the
sacrifice of all it holds most sacred to the cause of Divine Justice.
After the solemn benediction thousands streamed slowly out to mingle
with the multitudes gathered before the great Entrance where Queen
Anne in crown and scepter keeps majestic guard, and where in peaceful
days doves flit and flutter down to peck at the grain strewn about
her royal feet.
Stern and momentous times have passed over that old, gray Cathedral;
times of a Nation's grief and a Nation's rejoicing. But of all such
days, in its centuries of existence, none has been so momentous for
the destiny of the Empire as that sunny April day. And yet--and
yet--perhaps more touching, more solemn, even than the High
Service at St. Paul's, that which stirred Americans even more who
love England with only a lesser love, and made us realize as never
before what America stands for, joint defender now of the new
Civilization, was the silent symbol of her dedication to the Cause
of Human Freedom, for all London to see and on which, seeing, to
reflect. It was the symbol of that for which Statesmen who were
also prophets, have lived and toiled.
It rose against the glowing West, never to be forgotten by those
who saw it at the close of Our Day, for it marked the new Epoch.
Now at last "Let the dead Past bury its Dead."
Along Whitehall, down Parliament Street, and where towards the left
Westminster Bridge spans its immortal river, stand the Houses of
Parliament, their delicate tracery of stonework etched against the
sunset sky.