Intently, grimly, Sharon climbed from his car. His short, fat leg went back and he accurately kicked an empty sprinkling can across the floor. It was a satisfying object to kick; it made a good noise and came to a clattering rest on its dented side. It was so satisfying that with another kick he sent the can bounding through an open door.
"Gave it the second barrel, didn't you?" said Wilbur. Sharon grinned now.
"Just a letter to your brother," he explained. Then he became profanely impassioned. "Fudge! Fudge and double fudge! Scissors and white aprons! Prunes and apricots! No! That war won't be stopped by any magazine! Go on—fight your fool head off! Don't let any magazine keep you back!"
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.
"They can't stop the war, because there are too many boys like you all over this land. Trick or no trick, that's what they're up against. You'll all fight—while they're writing their magazines. Your reactions are different. That's a word I got from the dirty thing—and from that brother of yours. He gets a lot of use out of that word—always talking about his reactions. Just yesterday I said to him: 'Take care of your actions and your reactions will take care of themselves.' He don't cotton to me. I guess I never buttered him up with praise any too much. His languageousness gets on me. He's got Gideon and Harvey D. on a hot griddle, too, though they ain't lettin' on. Here the Whipples have always gone to war for their country—Revolutionary War and 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American—Harvey D. was in that. Didn't do much fighting, but he was belligerent enough. And now this son of his sets back and talks about his reactions! What I say—he's a Whipple in name only."
"He's educated," protested Wilbur, quick to defend this brother, even should he cheat him out of the good plain fighting he meant to do.
"Educated!" Sharon imitated a porpoise without knowing it. "Educated out of books! All any of that rabble rout of his knows is what they read secondhand. They don't know people. Don't know capitalists. Don't even know these wage slaves they write about. That's why they can't stop the war. They may be educated, but you're enlightened. They know more books, but you know more life in a minute than they'll ever know—you got a better idea of the what-for in this world. Let 'em write! You fight! If it rests on that hairy bunch to stop the war you'll get a bellyful of fighting. They're just a noisy fringe of buzzers round the real folks of this country."
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur. "I thought I'd ask."
"Well, now you know. Shove off!"
"Yes, sir." Sharon's tone changed to petulance.