“Of course not.”
“Have you ever thought much about it?”
“No—I think not. I’ve rather taken the country for granted, except when Dad has bellowed about the fatherland and that sort of thing. Then I’ve been stirred up a little. Irritated, I guess the word is. I haven’t been an out-and-out American, but I haven’t been anything else. That’s all.... Like father, for instance. His father was chased out of Germany in ’forty-eight, and you’d think Dad would have a grudge against it. But he hasn’t. He gets sentimental about Germany. He isn’t an American at all, though he was born here ... and that never seemed right to me.”
Potter nodded. “He’s not alone, of course, and it is a dangerous condition.... Well, the thing that happened to me was that I learned something about the United States, and the first thing I knew I was mighty strong for it.”
“And what are you doing here—with all these drawings and this machinery?”
“Aeroplanes,” he said. “Maybe you can understand what I’m doing. Nobody else seems to.... Doesn’t it seem to you that we’ve got to get into this war?”
“I haven’t thought much about that—not a great deal. But nobody seems to want war.”
“No. We’re smug and satisfied and cocksure. But I think we will be forced into it. We can’t stand everything. And if we go in it will be a tremendous thing—for which we won’t be ready. We’ll be in the position of a man with a hand-saw who is suddenly compelled to cut down a forest. We’ll have to do everything after the thing comes—raise an army and equip it. And we’ll need aeroplanes by the thousands.... That’s what I’m doing—getting ready for the time when we need aeroplanes. That is, I’m doing what I can to help.”
“And you’re not getting much help or sympathy,” she said.
He smiled wryly. “But I’m going ahead, just the same. I hope we never need them. Maybe we can stay out of it, and maybe we will stay out of it—but I’m going to stick to this game until I know. Because,” he said, with a sudden lighting of the face, a glow of enthusiasm from his eyes, “it’s the best thing I can do for the country—and I want to do my best for it.”