“Gosh!” Simmy said, worship in his eyes and voice.
She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed his smudgy cheek. “There, I think you’d better run along now, Simmy. They—they might hurt you.”
“I’m a-goin’ to stay right straight here,” he said. “Oh, Lady! What’s that? Listen to that! They’re a-comin’. Sure’s shootin’, they’re a-comin’.”
“Put out the lights,” said Carmel.
They stood in darkness. Carmel stretched out her hand and took the shotgun from Simmy’s grip. The feel of the cold barrel was distasteful to her. She felt a sense of outrage that she should be compelled to come in contact with an event such as this, an event of sordidness and violence. This was a reaction. For the moment she conceived of herself as doing something which, in the words of her grandmother, was unladylike. Even then she smiled at it. This was succeeded by determination. Doubtless her great-grandmothers had defended their homes from the raids of savage Indians. They had not been too delicate to handle firearms in the defense of their lives and their homes. Why should she be less resolute than they.... There was the story of the great-great-aunt who had killed an intruding savage with an ax!... If those things were heroic in pioneer days, why were they so unthinkable to-day? If women could display resolution, high courage, and perform awful acts of fortitude in 1771, why was not the woman of 1921 capable of conduct as praiseworthy?
Then, too, there was a specious unreality about the affair, something of play-acting. Carmel could not dispel the reflection that it was not so. She was making believe. No drunken men were actually approaching with sledge hammers. Her plant and her person were in no danger. It was playing with other toys substituted for dolls. She drew closer to her the cold barrel of the toy she clutched in her fingers.
“The safety’s on,” said Simmy, practically.
“The safety?”
“Yes, ’m, so’s nobody kin shoot himself. You have to take off the safety before the trigger’ll pull.”
“How do you do it?”