When the United States of America finally declared war against His
Satanic Majesty, Wilhelm of Prussia, Carter nodded his approval. The
nation's decision was reached at a time when he was in a particularly
generous mood, for things had been coming his way for some time and he
had finally settled down comfortably to enjoy them. In the preceding
fall he had reached the goal of his ambition, the managership of the New
York office of the Atlas Company, where he had been employed for
twenty-five years. This carried a salary of seventy-five hundred--some
jump from the petty twelve hundred on which he had started; even some
jump from the forty-five hundred he had been drawing for the past year.
The increase allowed Carter to make several very satisfactory changes:
first, to move from the rented house in Edgemere, where he had lived for
five years, to a house of his own in the same town, for which he gave a
warranty deed to his wife; to take his son Ben out of a commercial
school and send him to Harvard for a liberal education; and to purchase
a classy little runabout. There were certain other perquisites, too,
which made the world a better place to live in, such as an added
servant, a finer table, and, finally, the privilege of taking the
eight-ten to town instead of the seven-fifteen.
Carter enjoyed all these luxuries as only a man can who has worked hard
for them and waited long. He had promised them to his pretty wife the
day he married her, and now, after twenty years, he had made good. It
was worth something to see him, after a substantial breakfast, kiss
Kitty good-by on the front porch, give a proprietary look at the neat
shingled house, and stroll down the gravelly path at a leisurely pace,
stopping at the gate to light a fat cigar and wave a second adieu to the
little woman, who was still pretty and who he knew admired him from the
crown of his head to the tips of his shoes. She was that kind.
On the eight-ten he was meeting a new class of neighbors--all eight to
ten thousand dollar men, with a few above that figure, though the latter
generally moved to the Heights at round twelve thousand. They were men
whose lives were now polished and round like stones on the seashore
within reach of the waves. They varied, mostly, in their dimensions,
with of course some differences of political coloring. But they were
fast becoming neutral even in politics. With America at war the old
issues were disappearing.
Most of the men had long since become used to each other, but Carter,
sitting in the smoker--it was almost like a private car reserved for
those not due at their offices until nine--was actually thrilled by his
associates. And if ever he found an opportunity to refer among them to
"my son at Harvard" he was puffed up all the rest of the day. The only
thing he regretted was that the war had done away with football, because
in high school the lad had promised to make a name for himself in the
game. Still, even that had its redeeming features: his neck was safe.
Though the boy was climbing toward six feet and weighed, at eighteen,
round one hundred and seventy, he threw himself into the line in those
final school games with a recklessness that made Carter, looking on,
catch his breath.
Carter had not been able to keep pace with the boy's physical growth. It
still seemed to him but a brief time ago that he had been carrying him
round in his arms as a baby. And he had carried him for miles. He had
not been able to keep his hands off him. He had loved to feel the downy
head against his cheek and the frightened little heart pounding against
his own. Night after night he had walked the floor with him with a sense
of creation akin to God's. And when anything was really the matter with
the child Carter became a trembling wreck.
Well, those days were something to look back upon now with a smile. They
even played their part in the present. They afforded the contrast
necessary to allow him to extract to the last drop his final triumphant
success. Some of those who had never taken the seven-fifteen did not
know what it meant to take the eight-ten.
Carter, who had previously been content with one paper, now bought the
_Times_ and the _Sun_ at the station and glanced through the headlines.
He had read with a thrill of pride, as did everyone in the whole car on
that early spring morning, the President's declaration of war.
He was sitting beside Culver, of the Second National Bank, and
exclaimed: "Guess that'll make Wilhelm sit up and take notice, eh?"
Culver was an older man. Carter could have punched him for his response
in a level voice: "Yes. But 'tis going to make us sit up and take
notice, too."
"What do you mean?" demanded Carter with a trace of aggressiveness.
"I mean that our resources are going to be tested to the limit before
we're through with this."
"You wait until the Huns see Uncle Sam with his sleeves rolled up.
Wouldn't surprise me any if they quit."
Carter shifted his seat to a place near Barclay and Newell, who were
leading a group in three cheers for the President. And on his way
downtown that day he stopped to buy a flag and pole to be sent to the
house. Before he reached his office these flags of red and white and
blue had begun to appear in numbers on the tops of buildings and from
windows, brightening the dull gray backgrounds as with flowers. It made
him want to cheer. It made him walk more erect. The whole downtown
atmosphere became vibrant. The declaration of war was the sole topic of
conversation in the office, and one of the first things he did was to
ring up Kitty and tell her about it.
"Well, old girl, we've done it!" he exclaimed.
"Done what?" she asked anxiously.
"Declared war," he announced, as though in some way he had been
personally concerned in the act. "Guess that will make the Huns rub
their eyes."
"War?" trembled Kitty.
"You bet! Fritzie waited a little too long with his apologies that last
time."
In the succeeding days Carter followed the nation's preparations for the
task ahead with a feeling of reflected glory. His favorite phrase was:
"We're going at it man-fashion."
He was keen for conscription and liked to speak of a possible army of
two million. When the First Liberty Loan came along he subscribed for a
thousand dollars. He would have taken more, but he found that his
personal expenses had taken in the last few months a decided jump. It
was costing him more than twice as much to maintain his new house as it
had his old. Besides that, Ben's expenses at college were a considerable
item. His car, too, was costing more than he had anticipated, and he had
added unconsciously a lot to his everyday expenditures. He was smoking
better cigars, eating better lunches and wearing better clothes. At the
same time each one of these items was costing more. However, his new
position in a way called for these things, and, besides, he was entitled
to them. He had worked hard for them and they were the fair reward of
attainment.
Carter had hoped to do better on the Second Liberty Loan, but when the
time came he found it difficult to take out even another thousand. He
rather resented the way Newell, the overzealous member of the local
committee, harried him about it. When Newell suggested that he double
the amount the man was presuming to know Carter's circumstances better
than he himself knew them.
He had answered rather tartly:
"I'm capable of deciding my investments for myself."
In the interval between the two loans both the servants had asked for an
increase in wages, and Carter had been forced to pay it or see them go.
Kitty had suggested that she be allowed to get along with one and
undertake some of the housework herself, but he had set his foot down on
that.
"You've had your share of housework, little woman," he said. "It's time
you took a rest and enjoyed yourself."
But the servants were not the only ones who held Carter up. The grocer,
the butcher and the iceman all conspired against him. When the
Government began to take control under Hoover and fix prices for some of
the essentials Carter was outspoken in his approval.
"It's time something of the sort was done to check the food pirates," he
declared to Culver.
"Where's this government control going to stop?" questioned the latter.
"I don't know and I don't care," replied Carter aggressively.
"It's a type of paternalism, and that's dangerous," suggested Culver.
Carter replied with a glittering generality: "Your Uncle Sam has rolled
up his shirt sleeves and means business."
Carter always chuckled contentedly over the cartoons of the tall, lank
figure with the lean face, grimly set jaws and starred top hat. It
expressed for him in a human way his own patriotism. It filled him with
pride and gave him confidence. It satisfied his traditional conception
of Americanism. He even saw in the face a reflection of his own
ancestors who had fought at Bunker Hill and through the Civil War. It
was distinctly New England, but New England was still in his mind
distinctly America.
And yet Carter was puzzled at first when he read the names appearing in
the final draft lists--puzzled and a bit worried. These names were not
like those that were signed to the Declaration of Independence or those
who fell at Bunker Hill. Decidedly they were more like those found in
to-day's New York directory. This might have been expected, and yet it
gave Carter something of a shock until one afternoon he saw a regiment
of khaki-clad men marching down Fifth Avenue. Then he felt a lump in his
throat that prevented him from cheering as loud as he wished. In uniform
and marching to the stirring music of a military band these men were,
every mother's son of them, Americans. He saw the same lean faces, the
same lank, sinewy bodies, the same clear eyes and set jaws. Their lips
were sealed, so that it did not matter what language they spoke. In
khaki they were all Americans--the same who fought at Bunker Hill.
The sight sent Carter home with a renewed enthusiasm, which helped him
survive the shock of the news that the cook had, without notice, packed
up her trunk and left to take some sort of job in a factory. But
fortunately he had brought along with him a sirloin steak, which,
broiled, made a very satisfactory dinner. A week later the second girl
left.
Mrs. Carter took it good-humoredly, even with a certain amount of
relief. She had turned to Red Cross work and one thing or another, but
still she missed the care of her own home. Furthermore, she had been
genuinely disturbed by the way the expenses had been creeping up. But
Carter stormed round and spent half the next day trying to find some new
girls. The agencies showed him a few old women and shook their heads.
"We can't compete with the factories," they said sadly.
"But, hang it all, what's a man going to do?" he inquired petulantly.
The agencies, perforce, left him to answer that for himself.
As a matter of fact Carter was not wholly unselfish in his desire to
relieve his wife of the housework--particularly the culinary part of it.
She did her conscientious best, but she had never been able
satisfactorily to master the fine art of cooking. Possibly it was
because she herself was more or less indifferent to what she ate. A
slice of bread and a cup of tea were enough at any time to satisfy her,
so that when she did cook it was always for him and without any other
personal interest in the result. Sometimes she forgot; in fact, more
often than not she forgot. Perhaps it was only some one little thing,
like leaving the baking powder out of the biscuits or the sugar out of
the pies. Or if she did get everything in, perhaps she failed to
remember in time that the mixture was in the oven. When she began
fooling round with war recipes she found herself even more bewildered.
Lord knows, it calls for deft fingers and inborn skill to make a good
pie crust out of honest wheat flour, with all thought of economy thrown
to the winds. It requires nothing short of genius to produce the same
results with substitutes for everything except the apples.
She tried all one afternoon and created something that had a fairly good
surface appearance. She waited anxiously until Carter tasted it, and
then asked: "How do you like it, Ben?"
"You want the truth?" he returned.
"Of course there is no white flour in the crust, but----"
"There isn't anything in it that ought to be in a pie," he declared. "It
tastes to me as though it were made out of sawdust and motor oil."
He did not eat it. It might have been possible had he been starving, but
he was in no such unfortunate condition. A man does not ask for apple
pie because of its calory content, but because he wants apple pie. It is
a matter of taste. A primary essential is, then, not that it shall look
like apple pie, but that it shall have the flavor of apple pie. He had
been fond of apple pie all his life, and it certainly seemed like an
innocent enough addiction. That was equally true of doughnuts and coffee
for breakfast. He had enjoyed them all his life until they had become an
integral part of the morning meal. As a result of long practice Mrs.
Carter had finally succeeded in perfecting herself in the art of
doughnut making. But now instead of frying them in fat, she began to use
an excellent vegetable substitute. Not only that, but she followed this
by using a sirup for the sugar, and using eighty per cent barley flour
and twenty of wheat. She had been given the recipe by the local
conservation board and been assured that the product was very
satisfactory.
From the viewpoint of the conservation board that may have been true,
but to Carter it was nothing short of criminal to allow these balls of
fried barley flour to masquerade under the same name.
"Don't call 'em doughnuts," he growled, "'cause they aren't. Invent a
new name for them."
"War doughnuts?" suggested Mrs. Carter anxiously.
"War nothing!" sputtered Carter. "They don't even belong to the same
family."
Whereupon he turned to his coffee, sweetened with a new kind of sticky
substance that tasted like an inferior grade of molasses. There were
those who maintained that it was just as good as sugar for sweetening.
They were liars--bold-faced liars or they had lost their sense of taste.
They belonged to the same class as people who maintained that coffee was
better without sugar--that so one enjoyed the taste of the native berry.
One might just as well argue that flapjacks for the same reason were
best without sirup; cake without frosting; bread without butter.
Carter found his breakfast spoiled for him at precisely the period in
life when he was prepared most to enjoy his breakfast. This was
extremely irritating. It sent him to the office every morning with a
grouch that did not wear off until toward noon, when it was renewed by
having to pay twice what he should for a tasteless lunch. His cigars
were the only thing that held up well in flavor, and he began to smoke
too many of them.
Carter still followed each day's news of the nation's part in the great
war with honest pride. He liked the big way his country was going about
its preparations. He rolled the dramatic figures over his tongue and
gloated over the scale of the various projects. Six hundred millions
appropriated for airplanes!
"We'll show 'em," he announced to Culver. "We'll have the air over there
black with planes!"
And that job at Hog Island! They were planning to build fifty ways there
inside of a year--just put them down on a marshy island.
"Nothing small about your Uncle Sam," he chuckled.
When the inevitable scandals began to be whispered and congressional
investigations were started, Carter frowned.
"If these stories are true," he declared, "the grafters ought to be
lynched; if they're not we ought to lynch the darn-fool congressmen who
are interrupting the game."
The investigations took place, changes were made, and the work went on,
with the investigations soon forgotten. Nothing could check the onward
movement. Pershing landed in France, and soon was followed by his men.
Work on the same gigantic scale was begun on the other side. Docks were
built, railroads laid down overnight, warehouses put up almost between
dawn and twilight. This vanguard saw big and built big, and when the
news of its accomplishment began to filter across to the men at home it
made every American feel bigger.
At the close of his freshman year in June, Ben came back home, and that
personal interest took the place of every other in Carter's mind. The
boy was looking fine. Drill with the Harvard regiment had taken the
place of athletics and had left him as rugged and tanned as a seasoned
soldier. Carter proudly took the boy to town with him on the eight-ten
and introduced him to the crowd. Then he introduced him to everyone in
the office, including Stetson, the second vice president. There was some
design in this. He was preparing the way for an opening here for Ben as
soon as the lad was through college. With the benefit of the experience
Carter could give him the boy ought to climb high in the Atlas.
Ben had acquired poise in this last year. He met these men with an
assurance and charm of manner tempered with respectful deference that
surprised his father. It was clear that the boy made a very pleasant
impression.
At lunch Ben repeated to his father some of the experiences he had heard
from college mates who had gone over to drive ambulances. The boy was
full of it and his cheeks grew flushed as he talked. Carter became
disturbed.
"That's all very well," broke in Carter; "but those fellows might have
made themselves more useful if they had waited until they were of age.
Both President Lowell and the War Department are advising men to wait
and finish their college courses, aren't they?"
"Yes," admitted Ben; "they advise that."
"Well, it's sound advice," declared Carter. "A man with a college
education and Plattsburg on top of that is worth twenty ambulance
drivers. Officers are what we need."
"I suppose so," agreed Ben abstractedly.
The reply left Carter more comfortable. The boy was only just nineteen,
and that gave him two more years before he was twenty-one. By that time
the war would be over. Carter was sure of it. The nation by then would
be in full stride, and when that time came that was to be the end. Of
course, if by any chance the war should be prolonged--why, then the boy
would have to go. But that contingency was two years off--two long years
off. In the meanwhile the boy could feel that he was getting his
training. He was going to make a better officer for waiting. He would
gain in experience and judgment--two most necessary qualifications for
an officer. Carter proceeded to enlarge on that subject. But the boy
listened indifferently. Carter's position, however, was sound, and the
more he talked the more he convinced himself of this, so that he
succeeded in putting himself enough at ease to talk of the war in a
general way.
"Sort of makes a man glad he's an American to be living in these days,
eh, Ben?"
"You bet!" nodded Ben.
"The rest of the world thought we'd gone soft, but your old Uncle Sam
has shown that he still has fighting stuff in him. It took us some time
to get stirred up, but once started--woof!"
"We've got a big job on our hands," said Ben.
"The bigger the better," declared Carter. "It takes a big job to wake us
up."
The boy was surprised and encouraged by his father's aggressive
attitude, and yet when he ventured to reintroduce the subject of
ambulance service he saw his father shy off again. He was puzzled by
this and went away after lunch to meet his chum Stanley.
A week later, as Carter was about to settle down on the front porch for
an after-dinner smoke, Ben came along, took his arm and led him down the
graveled path toward the road--out of sight of the house, where Mrs.
Carter was washing the dishes. The boy kept his father's arm in an
unusually demonstrative manner until he stopped beneath an electric
light.