For an instant the two young men regarded each other, their eyes locked together. Then a strange thing happened. Bob appeared startled and taken aback and uncertain. He picked up a piece of silver and his big hand shook.
Dr. Dodge entered silently, carrying a tray of coffee cups, beautiful pieces of eggshell steaming with fragrant liquid. Grace was babbling to Grandon, Lincoln and his wife were talking loudly and genially along the length of the table, Sergeant Keiser was already stuffing himself ravenously. There was a dreamlike and disembodied air about the illustrious doctor, as if he did not know where he was but was moving in a trance. Out of the corner of his eye Durant saw Bob suddenly watching the old man, and the young man’s expression was inscrutable.
Durant, as a lawyer in the service of the State, had been allowed slightly better rations for his family and himself in New York. But he had forgotten that such food as this ever existed. He found himself extremely hungry. Yet, after a mouthful or two, he could no longer eat. The food sickened him. When Dr. Dodge tried to serve him some gravy, he shook his head. It was then that Dr. Dodge paused and stood immobile, the silver gravy-boat in his hand, his white-sleeved arm almost touching Durant’s shoulder. He gazed into space, like a dreamer vaguely disturbed, and the corners of his mouth quivered. Then he moved almost imperceptibly, and his wrist lightly pressed itself against Durant’s arm, as if something had dimly stirred in him, and was blindly reaching and exploring.
Struck to the heart with his compassion and sorrow though he was, Durant knew that he dared not betray his sensations for an instant. The old man had sensed him, had subconsciously known, if only for an instant. That instant, if prolonged, could become dangerous. He moved his left arm with an expression of annoyance. Lincoln saw this. He roared furiously: “Bill! Have you gone to sleep? Come over here. I want that gravy, if the major doesn’t want any.” He turned to Lieutenant Grandon. “Sometimes we have trouble with old Bill, and I’m thinking of sending him back to the city.”
Grandon laughed blithely. “That’ll be the end of him, then. Be big-hearted, Johnny, be big-hearted! The old goat does know how to serve, doesn’t he?” His quick eyes touched Dr. Dodge with humor. “He couldn’t work in any war plant, could he? He’d just ‘disappear’ in town. Just keep him in pasture.” He was highly amused at what he apparently considered his wit, for he laughed delightedly, and Grace joined him.
But Mrs. Lincoln was pettish. “Even though we don’t pay him anything, and just keep him in the barracks with the others, he’s getting to be a nuisance. Like—like hypnotized, or something, Bill!” she said sharply. “Miss Grace needs more coffee.”
Dr. Dodge moved away in his trance, his head bowed. Durant studiously avoided looking at him. Then he became aware that Bob was not eating at all. Durant said: “How many years were you in the Army, Bob?”
The young man seemed not to hear for a second or two, then he said, huskily, without glancing at Durant: “What’s it to you? Nearly three years, if you want to know.” Then, abruptly, he looked at Durant and the hatred was vivid on his face. “I was a captain. I was wounded twice. And I had radiation sickness for a year.” He continued to glare at Durant. “What happened to old Major Burnes? Was he murdered?”
“Oh, Bob!” Mrs. Lincoln screamed in absolute terror. “Why do you talk like that? You don’t know what you’re saying! The major—”
But Bob repeated, as if his mother had not spoken at all: “Was he murdered?”
Grandon was laughing gleefully. “What a thing to say, Bob!” And he shook his head as if delighted.
“Was he?” asked Bob of Durant, and his fists clenched.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” replied Andrew coldly. “He’s a colonel, now. In—in Chicago.”
Lincoln was frightfully alarmed, both at his son’s attack and Durant’s tone. He tried to speak, but could only wet his lips fearfully, his eyes darting from one young man to another. Grandon was highly amused, and grinning. Sergeant Keiser, momentarily diverted from his food, moved his bull-like neck from side to side as he watched Durant and Bob Lincoln acutely.
“In Chicago,” said Bob, as if bitterly reflecting. “You wouldn’t have his address, would you, Major? You must have known him, didn’t you, Major? You’d know where he is, and what he’s doing, wouldn’t you, Major?”
Durant shrugged. “Suppose you write to the Chief Magistrate, Bob.”
“The Chief Magistrate,” repeated Bob absently. “Yes. The Chief Magistrate.” Then he turned fully to the major. “This new war: good for the Military, isn’t it? When did you make up your minds whom to fight next?”
“Bob!” moaned Mrs. Lincoln, desperately trying to catch her husband’s attention.
Mr. Lincoln said ponderously, and his face had turned gray: “Bob, it’s your old war injuries botherin’ you. Why do you always—I mean, why do you say such things? Here’s our new major, a young feller like you—Major Curtiss. He’s here to help us, specially now we got another war. We’ll need at least twenty-five more people, for the war effort, raising food. Maybe fifty more, and the major promised—”
“‘The war effort,’” said Bob, without the slightest inflection in his voice. “Yes, yes, ‘the war effort.’ I’m always forgetting there’s always a new ‘war effort.’” Then, without warning, he burst out laughing, and the sound was terrible. He stood up, spilling his cup of coffee, unaware of his mother’s faint scream, his sister’s dim dismay, his father’s terror. Then, without a word or a look, he stumbled from the room, still laughing maniacally. They could hear that laughter retreating, diminishing. Yet, it seemed as if the echo remained in the warm and pleasant dining room like an ominous presence.
Durant drank his coffee thoughtfully, listening to the heavy silence. He said, with kindness: “Some of these young veterans suffer a long time from their injuries. Well, he won’t have to go for this new war. He’s essential. He shouldn’t have gone in the first place.”
Lincoln exhaled, released from his terror. He said effusively: “You’re right, Major! Exactly right! We tried to stop him—needed him right here on the farm. But he went away and enlisted under another name. We didn’t know where he was for nearly three years. It was awful, wasn’t it, Mazie?”
“Yes,” said the woman, whimpering. She had not liked Durant at first. Now she regarded him with docile pleading and relief. He hadn’t been offended; he hadn’t taken offense at Bob. He had understood. He was a veteran himself, a soldier. And the Military needed the farmers. Why, if the farmers refused to produce, the Military would starve! The farmers were everything in The Democracy. Hadn’t the President himself said so? She felt quite warm, and reassured. No, she hadn’t liked Durant at first. She and her husband had “managed” the old major. He had been a friend of the family. Perhaps this young officer could be managed. Why, he was even nice-looking, and a major, too! She moistened her lips: “Major, are your wife and children living in Philadelphia?”
“Oh, I’m not married,” said Durant, smiling easily.
Mrs. Lincoln’s little eyes flashed to her daughter. Now, a major in the family! He seemed very important. Hadn’t her husband whispered to her that Major Curtiss had been given much greater powers than old Major Burnes? Mrs. Lincoln trilled coquettishly: “We’ll just have to find a wife for you, Major!”
Durant let his glance rove first to Grandon, who had stopped smiling so broadly, and then to Grace Lincoln, who was giving him a long blue stare. “Why, yes,” said Durant gravely, “it might be a good idea.”
Grandon was not smiling at all. His young face darkened. Grace Lincoln smiled and preened herself. Sergeant Keiser watched everybody.
Lincoln, having noticed Durant’s apparent and admiring interest in his daughter, became expansive. A major, and a powerful one, would be excellent in this family. He, Lincoln, did not like Grandon, who was only a lieutenant, and “light-minded” and without “a grain of sense.” With the small but tight suspiciousness of the countryman, Lincoln thought: Andrew Curtiss. A good o
ld, a fine old, American name. This major did not “suit” the name, it was true, with that complexion and those eyes and that hair, but he spoke “American” and acted “American.” Lincoln, glowing like the sun, brought out his best brandy, and to show his sophistication he poured it, himself, into large brandy glasses. He almost forgot the indignity of having a mere sergeant at his table, and his early uneasiness.
He eagerly assented to Durant’s suggestion that the farm be inspected. So he and Durant, accompanied by a somewhat resentful Grandon and a silent Keiser, went on a tour of inspection. The mighty barns, bulging with farm products, attracted Durant, and Lincoln, intoxicated by praise, was only too glad to explain. He showed Durant the mountains of fat smoked hams, the granaries, the sides of bacon, the freeze-houses where hung endless rows of fine, fresh beef, and where stood countless jars of excellent butter. “We use all we want, ourselves, first,” explained the farmer, smiling broadly. “Then we sell the rest to the Government. The Armed Forces get it, and the Government men, and our allies. I got to admit that I’ve some wonderful things, here, but there’s millions like me, all over the country, some bigger than me, some smaller. The Government scientists sure have taught us the best way to raise things, and we produce twice what we did twenty years ago.”
“Enough to feed everybody in The Democracy to the bursting point,” suggested Durant, with a wise smile and wink.
Lincoln laughed with rich knowingness. “Yep, that’s right. But you know the Government knows best! Feed the cities too much meat and white bread and butter and such, and first thing you know they’ll get uppity and out of control, and that’s be the end of our wonderful Government, and the rest of us.” He poked Durant in the ribs with a comradely elbow. “Got to keep the rabble in the cities just fed enough so they can work but not enough to give ’em ideas.”
Durant affected to find this very amusing. “Anyways, we farmers get our money, and big money, for it, from the Government. And now, with the new war effort, we’ll have to raise more.”
“And get more,” said Durant, with friendly confidence.
“That’s right. The Grange takes care of all negotiations with the Government. No paper money for the Grange! We got to protect ourselves. Like the Armed Forces.”
“We don’t get gold,” said Durant, yawning to show his indifference. He turned around, suddenly, and caught Keiser’s sudden black glower and the strange expression on Grandon’s face. He held back his own conspirator’s smile, and angrily warned himself. How did he know what these men were really thinking?
They wandered out to the fields, in the most confiding terms. They leaned casually on the well-kept fences. Before them, the broad valley rose and fell gently in green brilliance under the spring sun, and herds of fat cattle grazed placidly beneath trees filled with a green mist. Beyond the valley the mountains rose in blue clouds against a lighter blue sky, and birds, returned from the south, chattered and sang shrilly in the warm stillness. There was such an air of peace and plenty here, such a richness and fecund steadfastness and hope. Durant thought of the dark and ratty cities, the flaking buildings, the want and hunger. He thought of the hopelessness, the faceless multitudes, conscripted and hunted and watched and driven to motiveless work, if one wished to believe that the constant wars were motiveless. No, they were not motiveless, Durant remembered with sudden and smothering rage. They were motives in themselves, though the “Enemy” was never the same.
Durant leaned on the fence with his left arm, and studied the scores of men who were busy in the fields and around the farmyards. They appeared to be a little better fed than their fellows in the cities, though their clothing was ragged. They went about their work, heads bent, faces dull and expressionless, motions automatic. Some of them had distinguished features. Teachers and doctors, businessmen and artists, probably, before they had been conscripted for this labor because of “subversiveness.” Durant examined them a little more closely, looking for one bitter or rebellious eye, one eye aflame with hate. But no man, or no woman, glanced up.
Well, thought Durant, with a sudden and somber hatred of his own, you had your chance. But so many of you were so enthusiastic about Socialism and Communism and “Government control of the means of production,” and Statism, and all the other ancient horrors of oppression, not more than twenty years ago. You were young, then, and you were either too unrealistic, or greedy, or you were full of “idealism.” I wonder, thought Durant, if those emotions aren’t, in the final analysis, one and the same thing after all? At any rate, you men and you women out there, tending beasts or plowing or planting, are in a great part responsible for your own serfdom. You were used by your masters all the time, and perhaps your punishment is just.
Five middle-aged men, carrying spades and other farm equipment, passed near Durant and Lincoln, on the other side of the fence. They moved silently, as if in a trance. Durant raised his voice. “Your two-legged animals don’t look as intelligent as your four-legged ones, Mr. Lincoln.”
The farmer roared happily at this witticism, and slapped his broad thigh. The farm laborers shuffled on, apparently deaf. They were about ten feet beyond the farmer and the soldiers when two of them suddenly glanced back, and their thin browned faces were contorted with malignant hate and menace. Their eyes had come alive, and there was murder in them. Lincoln did not see this. He shouted angrily: “Go on there, you Jimmy and Tom. There’s work to do. Don’t lag behind.”
Jimmy and Tom. Durant concentrated on these men with surprise and satisfaction. When the day came, Lincoln and his family would probably be very efficiently, if slowly, slaughtered. And I, too, probably, thought Durant, without much pleasure. Again, he was determined not only to fight for the restoration of the Republic and the Constitution, but to live for it. There must be a way. He was a young man, with a wife and family. The Chief Magistrate had dedicated his life to his country, and had no other interest. This was excellent, and without him nothing could be done. Steely fanatics were necessary if the Republic were to live again, but there must also be men to restock that Republic so that it would be strong and invulnerable. The masses in the cities were quite hopeless. They had eagerly delivered themselves to their crime-infiltered unions twenty-five or thirty years ago, had become the slaves of gangsters and exploiters, decades before the Republic had been crushed. So, there must be free and honorable men left alive to beget a finer and nobler race, to again establish liberty and justice for all.
Deeply, Durant inhaled the vividly fresh and fragrant air of the countryside. He would never again, he resolved, live in any city. His grandfather had once told him that when men go too far from the earth, become too engrossed in the artificial life of cosmopolitanism, they spiritually become exiles and homeless. How many men, in the cities, knew from what distant streams, what deep mountain wells and rivers, their water was derived, and from what smiling and silent acres they drew their sustenance?
Lincoln was now pointing out to Durant the chimneys and red roofs where his two older sons lived, and he was pridefully boasting of their families. “Kids as fat as butter, and porky, too,” he was saying. “Not like those little white mice in the cities.” His voice was full of the countryman’s contempt for the city-dweller. “Got ten good bedrooms in my own house, with four baths; big enough for the whole three families. But my boys wanted their own houses, and now I think it’s fine.”
“Wonderful, to live here,” Durant remarked.
“Yes, indeedy,” said Lincoln, with complacence.
Durant leaned more comfortably on the fence, and nodded at the fields. “I’m a city man myself, I’ve decided I don’t like it, Mr. Lincoln. And I think a lot of my men would prefer to be out here, too.” He lifted himself from the fence, and smiled at the suddenly sober farmer, and his smile was disarming. “So, Mr. Lincoln, you’ve got yourself five new boarders. We’re moving in on you, Mr. Lincoln. Tonight.”
As at a signal, the lieutenant and the sergeant quickly stepped closer to Durant, and Lincoln,
gray as ash, saw the three smiling and alert faces, and the three pairs of eyes which were, all at once, not friendly but cruelly amused. His big knees began to shake; his voice rumbled in his throat and he could hardly speak.
“Move in on me?” he stuttered, incredulous. “You—you can’t, Major. That—that’s against the law. We farmers got the law—We—”
“The Army makes the law, Lincoln,” replied Durant curtly, but still smiling. “Remember? We make the law. The President just signs what we tell him to sign. Besides, the Army is your friend, isn’t it? You aren’t going to turn on the Army, are you, Lincoln?”
“My God, no!” cried Lincoln, with absolute terror. He clutched the fence-rail, and swallowed visibly. “But, Major! It—it ain’t right. The other farmers—”
“I am going to issue a directive, tonight, that all the Military who want to may move in on the farmers—and enjoy the happy life, too. Of course, that is only for my district, but I think that the Military all over the country will follow the action of the Military in Section 7, very soon.”
Wildly, Lincoln thought of the Grange. Why, the Grange wouldn’t stand for this stupefying thing. The Grange was Everything! All the farmers had to do was to lie down on the job, and then see who was really the strongest, the Military or the farmers! Why, the President, threatened by a countryside strike of the farmers, especially now that he had created a new war, would soon know who was Boss in this country!
Durant, watching that jerking and that twitching face, understood exactly the thought behind it. He said casually: “I suppose the farmers won’t like it, at first. Maybe some of them will go on strike, or shout that they won’t produce. That’ll be very bad for them, Lincoln. Because we’ll just take over their farms and let their conscripted labor run them. Besides, thousands of the Military were once country boys, themselves, and with the help of Government agriculturists they’ll manage very well.” He paused, as if musing. “I’ve often wondered why it was necessary to have independent farmers at all! Why can’t we have collectivized farms, the same as they have in Europe? Why hasn’t somebody thought of that in Washington before this?”
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