So, at last, Hal had his shoulder-straps, his officer’s uniform, and his equipment. Much against his inclination he had been obliged to accept these things as a gift from his Aunt Sarah Halpert. Not to have done so would, as she herself declared, have completely broken her heart.
“I can’t go and fight,” she said to him; “not but what I’d be perfectly willing to, but they wouldn’t let me. So the next best thing for me to do was to furnish you with your fighting togs. And you’ll have a chance to use ’em; take my word for it. Uncle Sam’s soldiers are going to have some fighting to do before things get settled.”
“I hope not, Aunt Sarah.”
“You hope not! Why, you weak-kneed pacifist! If this government doesn’t jump in and help France and England smash the Kaiser, I’ll be ashamed of my flag.”
“It’s not our quarrel.”
“Of course it’s our quarrel. Those stupid German blunderers have made it our quarrel. They’ve trodden on Uncle Sam’s coat-tails once a week for a year. They’ll do it about twice more and then something will drop. Besides, there’s all that hubbub down in Mexico, making life a nightmare this side the border. Those hoodlums have got to be clubbed into decency, and I don’t see but what you fellows have got to go down there and do it. There isn’t enough of the regular army to patrol a greaser’s cabin. And if you don’t get a taste of war across the seas or down among the cactus, you may have a chance to show your mettle right here at home. They say the workmen in the mills are getting impudent and ugly and threatening a strike that’ll make Ben Barriscale’s hair stand on end. I mean the old man.”
She paused, not because she had no more to say, but in order to take fresh breath. The pause gave Hal another chance to break in.
“I wouldn’t mind helping to defend this country against a foreign foe, if it were necessary,” he said, “or even assisting to suppress a domestic rebellion against the lawfully organized government. But when it comes to doing strike duty I protest. That’s a job for the state police anyway; not for the National Guard.”
“But it is a job for the National Guard when it gets too big for the police or the state police to handle. I suppose men have a right to quit work whenever they want to; but they haven’t a right to try to win a strike with brickbats and torches.”