She said in that happy case she might consent to adorn the cattle business a few decades longer, but for her part she didn't believe wars would end. If it wasn't this war it would be another one, because human beings are undeniably human. As how? Well, I could take it this way. Say one of these here inventors sets up nights for twenty years inventing a gun that will shoot through a steel plate sixteen inches thick. All right so far. But the next day another inventor invents a piece of steel seventeen inches thick. And it had to begin all over—just a seesaw. From where she set she couldn't see no end to it. Was she right; or wasn't she? Of course!
But now, further, about compelling little boys to wear long curls till maturity, with the idee of blunting their finer instincts and making hellions of 'em, so's to have some dandy shock troops for the next war—well, she didn't know. Room for argument there.
This seemed reasonable. I didn't know either. It was an entirely new idee, come from nowhere. This was the very first moment I had supposed there could be such an idee. But such is Ma Pettengill. I thought to inquire as to the origin of this novelty; perhaps to have it more fully set forth. But I had not to. Already I saw unrelenting continuance in the woman's quickened eye. There would be, in fact, no stopping her now. So I might as well leave a one-line space right here to avoid using the double and single quotation marks, which are a nuisance to all concerned. I will merely say that Ma Pettengill spoke in part as follows, and at no time during the interview said modestly that she would prefer not to have her name mentioned.
Mind you, I don't say war's a good thing, even for them that come out of it. Of course you can read stories about how good it is in improving the character. I've read pretty ones in these here sentimental magazines that get close to the great heart of the people once a month; stories about how the town tough boy, that robs his gray-haired mother of her wash money to play pool with, goes into war's purifying flames and comes out a man, having rescued Marshal Fotch from a shell hole under fire and got the thanks of the French nation and his home-town paper. Now he don't hang round the pool parlour any more, running down fifteen balls from the break, but shuns his low companions, never touches a cue again, marries the mayor's daughter and becomes the regular Democratic candidate for county recorder.
These stories may be true. I don't know. Only these same magazines print stories that have a brave fireman in the picture carrying a fainted girl down his ladder through the flames, and if you believed them you'd also believe they had to set a tenement house on fire every time a fireman wants to get married. And that don't stand to reason. Mebbe the other stories don't either.
But what about the other side of these same stories? What about the village good boy that goes through war's purifying flame and comes back home to be the town tough? Ain't it time someone showed up the moral ravages war commits on our best young men?
Me? I just had a talk lately with a widowed mother down to Red Gap and what this beastly war has done to her oldest boy—well, if she could of looked ahead she would of let the world go right on being unsafe even for Republicans. She poured her heart out to me. She is Mrs. Arline Plunkett, one of the sweetest, gentlest mothers that ever guarded a son from every evil influence. And then to see it all go whoosh! The son's name was Shelley Plunkett, or it was until he went out into the world to make a name for himself. He is now largely known as Bugs Plunkett. I leave it to you if a nice mother would relish having her boy make that name for himself. And after all the pains she'd took with his moral development from the cradle up—till he run away from home on account of his curls!
Arline had been left well-off by her husband, who was president of the Drovers' Trust Company, and her home was about the most refined home in Red Gap, having full bookcases and pictures of foreign Catholic churches—though Arline is a Presbyterian—and metal statues of antique persons, male and female, and many articles of adornment that can't be had for the ordinary trading stamps. She lived, of course, only for her two boys, Shelley and Keats. Keats being an infant didn't require much living for, but Shelley was old enough to need a lot of it.
He was eight years old when I first seen him, with long golden curls to his shoulders and lace on his velvet pants. He came in when I was calling on his ma and acted the perfect little gentleman. He was so quiet and grown-up he made me feel right awkward. He had the face of a half-growed angel framed in these yellow curls, and his manners was them of Sir Galahad that he read stories about. He was very entertaining this day. His mother had him show me a portrait of himself and curls that had been printed in a magazine devoted to mothers and watermelon-rind pickles, and so forth, and he also brought me the new book his pastor had presented him with on his eighth birthday.
It was a lovely bound book, having a story about a sheepman that had a hundred head out on the range and lost one and left the other ninety-nine unprotected from the coyotes and went out into the brush looking for the lost one, which is about the brains of the average sheepman; but it was a pretty book, and little Shelley told me prettily all about the story, and showed me how his dear pastor had wrote in it for him. He had wrote: "To Shelley Vane Plunkett, who to the distinction of his name unites a noble and elevated nature." I wonder if Bugs Plunkett ever looks at that writing now and blushes for his lost angel face? Anyway, I thought this day that he was the loveliest, purest child in the world, with his delicate beauty and sweet little voice and perfect manners, all set off by the golden curls.