He drew himself up to his full height and looked down on me with indignation.
“I’m a college man,” he informed me haughtily. “It is impossible for me to associate with the type of man sent to —th Camp.”
“Why, what is the matter with them?” I questioned, still at a loss to know at what he actually was driving. “What could they do to you?”
“Do to me?” He was so disgusted that he appeared to consider turning his back on me. Evidently he had a second and what he considered a wiser thought. “I’ll tell you just how it is—what happened when I went out there the other day,” he began in the confidential tone assumed by some men when they think they are about to help themselves to a kiss. “The first man I met was a barber—the fellow who has been shaving me every morning for—oh, I don’t know how long.” Looking at him I waited—I was not waiting for the kiss. “Now, you couldn’t expect me to associate with fellows like those—could you?” I looked away without replying—there are so many different kinds of fool in this world. After a moment he added pettishly: “If you were a college woman you’d understand.”
He not only made me feel ill, but he made me feel evil. I felt just as one does when in the grip of a bilious attack—what is it all about?—why not kill me at once without putting me through such nauseating torments?
“I am a college woman,” I told him, feeling weak from nausea. The next instant resentment flared up, and taking the bit in my teeth I lied without shame. “I’m not only a college graduate, but I have four honorary degrees.”
“Four degrees!” he cried, staring at me goggle-eyed. “Why, why! What you work here for?—’mong these people?”
“For one reason, because I’m not a jinnyass,” I snapped back at him. “For another, I’d sweep the streets, be glad to sweep them, for the sake of helping my country win this war.” Then I stood and glared at him, and I think I clinched my fists. “God help a college that turns out such male creatures as you.” Turning my back on him I stalked over to a window and stood staring at the front of the City Hall.
I was not grieving for the lie told when claiming four degrees. But I did regret, rebelliously regret, that it was not within my power to form all draft-evaders in one company, force them to the front, and leave them for the Germans to finish. I questioned, and I still question, the right of any person, man or woman, to live in a country for which he or she is unwilling to fight. I felt and I still feel that if they had any sense of honor in their puny souls, they would get out and found a country of their own—a country of draft-evaders!
As contemptible as these persons seemed to me there was another class for which I had an even greater abomination—a class, as I now see conditions, that not only threatens the life of our country but of what we call Christian civilization. That class against which the most beloved of our Presidents never ceased to thunder—the intentionally childless married woman.