Shortly after eight-thirty one sunshiny morning, with just enough nip in the air, I was hurrying along East Twenty-sixth Street sorting over a handful of complaints when a hand clutched my arm. Glancing up as I was brought to a halt my eyes stared into as discontented and unhappy a face as I had ever seen.
“Where are you going?” the woman whose hand still clutched my shoulder demanded, and the movement of her lips breaking up the expression of discontent somewhat, I recognized one of the best known of American women novelists.
“How do you happen to be out so early?” I countered. “I remember your telling me that you never allowed anything to break into your mornings—that you always worked until noon.”
“Work!” she exclaimed, throwing out her hand in a gesture of despair. “What’s the use of work? I can’t sell a line—not one line. They only want war, war, nothing but war. War! I’m sick of it. Why will people read about the war?”
“Because we’ve all got somebody at the front, I reckon—sons, brothers, husbands, sweethearts, or at least a friend,” I replied, trying to make my tone pleasant.
There could be no doubt about the woman’s harassed state of mind, whatever the cause. There were deep furrows between her brows, and the lines at the corners of her eyes looked more like turkey feet than those of a crow.
“I have not,” she exulted. “Not one drop of my blood is in this war. My family don’t believe in war. We——”
“I’ve always noticed,” I cut in, “that you conscientious objectors to war are damned careful to live and own property in a country that does believe in war.”
My cheeks burned, and I have an idea that I closely resembled a spitting wildcat. But I had listened to all of that sort of talk I was going to swallow from Hildegarde Hook and her “we villagers” ilk.
“My dear!” she exclaimed, and I saw that my one poor little cuss word had shocked her. “I had no idea that you felt so—so keenly about—about the matter. If I had, of course——”