Jesse Dick was called in the first draft. Charley kept doggedly at her work all summer, riding back and forth in the dirt and cinders of the I. C. trains. It was a summer of intense heat. Daily Charley threatened to appear at Shields' in her bathing suit or in one of the Greekest of her dancing costumes. But it was surprising to see how roselike she could look as she emerged after dinner in a last year's organdie. Everyone was dancing. Sometimes Charley went to the Midway Garden at the entrance to Washington Park or over to the old Bismarck (now known as the Marigold Gardens) there to dance and dine outdoors in the moonlight. Always she was squired by a dashing blue-and-gold or white duck uniform from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, or olive-drab and shiny tan boots from Fort Sheridan.
Jesse Dick came home just before he sailed for France. He wore an issue uniform which would have rendered grotesque a Captain Jinks or a D'Artagnan. The sleeves were too short; the collar too large; the jacket too brief. Spiral puttees wrapped his slim shanks. Army brogans—yellow—were on his feet.
Bairnsfather's drawings had already achieved a popularity in America. Charley hung between laughter and tears when Jesse struck a pose and said, "Alf."
They drove to the Marigold Gardens on the North Side. Jesse had not sold his little flivver. The place was a fairyland of lights, music, flower-banked terraces. Hundreds were dining outdoors under the moonlight, the women in pale-coloured organdies and chiffons, the men in Palm Beach suits or in uniforms. No where else in America could one find just this sort of thing—nor, for that matter, in Europe even in the days before the war. In a city constantly referred to as crude, commercial, and unlovely there flourished two garden spots unique, exquisite and unproclaimed.
Jesse ordered a dinner that brought a look of wonder to the face of the waiter (Swiss, of course) who had gauged his prospective order after one glance at the ill-fitting issue uniform.
"Dance?" said Jesse.
"Yes." They danced, wordlessly. They danced before and after the hors d'œuvres, the fowl, the salad, the dessert, the coffee. They talked little. The boy glanced about with cold wise young eyes. "God!"
"Yes, I know," Charley said, as if in answer to a long speech, "but after all what good would it do if they all stayed home! They're probably all doing their share. They hate it as much as you do. Moping won't help."
"Dance?"
"Yes."