Suddenly Red brought his fist down on the table.
“You’re afraid,” he cried, “of the personal issue, you fellows! Forget that you have sons—let the sons forget that they have fathers. What’s America’s plain duty? Good God—it’s as plain as a pikestaff! She’s got to get in—to keep her own self-respect.”
“And to save her own soul,” added Black; and again the eyes of the two men met across the table.
It was at this instant that Tom Lockhart took fire. Up to these last words of Red and Black he had been merely intensely interested and excited; now, suddenly, he was aglow with eagerness to show where he stood, he of the class who in all wars are first to offer themselves. Almost before he knew it he had spoken, breaking the silence which had succeeded upon Black’s grave words.
“I’m ready to go,” he said, and a great flush spread over his fair young face to the roots of his thick, sandy hair.
Then, indeed, the table was in an uproar—a subdued uproar, to be sure, but none the less throbbing with contrary opinion. As for Samuel Lockhart himself, he could only stare incredulously at his boy, but the other men, with the exception of the doctor and the minister, were instantly upon Tom with hurried words of disapproval. William Jennings, who sat next him, turned and laid a remonstrating hand on Tom’s arm.
“My boy,” he said, fiercely—it was he whose son was likely to enlist with Canada—“you don’t know what you’re talking about. For Heaven’s sake, don’t lose your head like my George! There isn’t any call for you youngsters to take this thing seriously—leave it to the ones who are of military age, at least. They’ve got enough men over there, anyway, to see this war through; if we send money and munitions, the way we are doing, that’s our part, and a big part it is, too.”
Well, Tom found himself wishing in a way that he hadn’t spoken up, since it had brought all the heavy-weights down on his undeniably boyish self. And yet, somehow, when he had glanced just once at Red and Black, he couldn’t be entirely sorry. Both had given him a look which he would have done much to earn, and neither had said a word of remonstrance.
Yet, after the dinner, his impression that they were both eager to have him carry his expression of willingness into that of a fixed purpose, suffered an unexpected change. As they rose from the table, at a late hour, Red—who had not been called out yet after all—slipped his arm through Tom’s, and spoke in his ear.
“I’m proud of you, lad,” he said, “but I want you to think this thing through to the end. Duty sometimes takes one form and sometimes another. I’ve been watching your father, and—you see—you dealt him a pretty heavy blow to-night, and he hasn’t been quite the same man since. Go slow—that’s only fair to him. You’re not twenty-one yet, are you?”