Then I remembered that he was an irreconcilable pacifist. Needing no answer, he went on: “I am sorry to see that the militarist spirit has seized you too.”
Now if anything vexes me, it is to be told that I am a militarist. “Not that, sir,” said I. “War is the last thing that I want.”
“Train a man to wield a weapon,” he rejoined, “and he will itch to use it.” I think we were both a little sententious because of the approach of the train. “Your argument is, I suppose, that the country is in danger?”
“Exactly,” I replied.
He raised both hands. “Madness! No one will attack us.”
I refrained from telling him that with so much at stake I was unwilling to accept even treaty assurances on that point. He went on. “The whole world is mad with desire to slay. But I would rather have my son killed than killing others.”
He is proud of his son, but he is prouder of his daughter. Said I, “If war comes, and we are unprepared for it, you might have not only your son killed, but your daughter too.”
Horrified, he had not yet begun to express himself on the impossibility of invasion, when the train came. So we parted. To tell the truth, I am not sorry that he feels so: it is very ideal. And I regret no longer having my own fine feeling of security. It is only a year or so ago that I was just such a pacifist as he.
If I in my new uniform was at home a curiosity, when I reached Boston I found myself merely one among many, for the North Station was full of Plattsburgers. There is great comfort in being like other folk. A thick crowd it was at our special train, raw recruits with their admiring women-folk or fun-poking friends. The departure was not like the leaving of soldiers for the front, such as we saw in July when the boys went to Texas. We should come back not with wounds, but with a healthy tan and much useful experience. So every one was jolly, except for a young couple that were walking up and down in silent communion, and sometimes furtively touching hands—a young married pair, I thought, before their first separation.
We were off without much delay, a train-load wholly of men, and all greenhorns. For all of us had nice fresh crinkly blouses, and olive-drab (properly o. d.) knees not yet worn white (as I have seen on returning Plattsburgers) while our canvas leggings were still unshaped to our manly calves. Our hats were new and stiff, and their gaudy cords were bright. And we were inquisitive of the life that was ahead of us, readily making acquaintance in order to compare our scraps of information. Dismay ran here and there with the knowledge that the typhoid inoculation required three weekly doses. Thank goodness, that is over with for me. We tried to be very soldierly in bearing, evidently an effort in other cases than mine. One fellow had his own gun along; he wanted, he said, to make a good score on the range. So I had my first chance to handle an army rifle.