Elizabeth’s eyes glittered angrily. She did not quite dare to cross swords with the older woman, so she turned upon her husband.
“Well, he’ll make a great soldier, won’t he!” she jeered.
“Why, I wouldn’t hardly think he was up to the standard height,” Brother Seabrook said, running his eye appraisingly over Mr. Bixby.
“Oh, it ain’t always the biggest men makes the best soldiers,” Mrs. Johnson protested.
They all fixed their scrutinizing eyes upon the little man, but none of them spoke directly to him, unconsciously following the impersonal attitude that Elizabeth had adopted.
Julie was standing in the background, having just returned from the kitchen. She had paused involuntarily when she heard Elizabeth’s remark about Mr. Bixby’s being drafted, and her eyes went quickly to his face. She saw his lips give that faint nervous twitch, and his face stiffen. Then when they all turned their impersonal scrutiny upon him, as though they were inspecting some curious specimen, she saw the unhappy crimson flush up to his eyes.
“What’s the matter with us?” Julie thought violently, unconsciously classing herself with him. “Why can’t folks see us? We’re there just like anybody else, but they always act like they didn’t see us. Someway we stand outside of people’s minds, an’ have to wait for them to open an’ let us in. And they never do.”
Suddenly familiar words flashed upon her with such vividness as to leave her giddy. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” She was aware of so enormous an extension of understanding that the whole of it was beyond her grasp, making her feel for an instant as though she reeled into a larger world. She knew that it was just Mr. Bixby sitting there, silent and embarrassed, shut away from life by the impersonal eyes upon him; and yet in that moment of insight it seemed to her that the great essence of humanity was there looking forth from the caged bars of the little man’s face, waiting patiently, terribly, for an invitation to enter. “I got to let him in—I got to get the door open someway an’ let him in!” she thought fiercely. She moved forward quickly, holding out her plate of waffles. “Have a fresh waffle, Mr. Bixby,” she urged. “These are nice and crisp. I’d like for you to try one.”
It was all perfectly simple and natural, and yet the slight emphasis she laid upon the personal pronoun seemed to open the door for him that he might emerge into the life of a real human being, set free from the negative limbo to which the others had driven him.
He looked up quickly and gladly into her face, with that look of release and freedom, and the breaking of a constricting cord which she had read in his expression before.