Elliott turned the conversation. “I wish you could tell me what you were going to say, when we were interrupted yesterday, about a person’s having no choice except how he will do things—you having had only that kind of choice.”
“I remember,” said Bruce. “Well, for one thing, I suppose I could get grouchy, if I chose, over not knowing who my people were.”
“They may have been very splendid,” said Elliott.
Bruce smiled. “It’s not likely.”
“In that case,” she countered, “you have the satisfaction of not knowing who they were.”
“Exactly. But that’s rather a crawl, isn’t it? Of course, a fellow would like to know.”
The boy bent forward, and, with painstaking care, selected a blade from a tuft of grass growing between his feet. He nibbled a minute before he spoke again.
“See here, I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told a soul. I’m crazy to go to the war. Sometimes it seems as though I couldn’t stay home. When Pete’s letters come I have to go away somewhere quick and chop wood! Anything to get busy for a while.”
“Aren’t you too young? Would they take you?”