He ceased as abruptly as he had begun, stared fixedly at Wayne and Joe and then slowly descended, muttering and shaking his head. When he was out of sight the two stood silently gazing after him. Wayne drew his hand across his forehead several times before he spoke.
“Men live for things and they die for things. That poor old fellow has lost his mind brooding over the horror of war. They didn’t do it for themselves—the men who fought that war—they did it for the country, and for you and me who weren’t born. I wonder—I wonder how it would be to do something just once that was for somebody else?”
Then he remembered what Jean had said to him in his father’s library, that we must serve ourselves before we attempt to serve others. He applied this to himself tentatively, wondering whether any philosophy was really applicable to his case. Joe spoke to him; he wanted to discuss the old soldier’s story, but Wayne did not heed him. He was looking dreamily down upon the tranquil landscape. Then he slapped his hands together as was his way when a new thought took hold of him.
“Joe.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wonder how it would seem to go to work.”
“Well, there’s always your roost in the high buildin’ and buttons to press for the slaves,” suggested Joe cheerfully.
“Don’t be a fool, Joe. I mean work—the kind that real men do, digging or planting, or any kind of thing that breaks your back and makes you dead tired—the workmen do who would do that——” and he levelled his arm toward the field where Pickett’s legion had charged through the hail-swept wheat field.
Joe was not equal to this; here was a man born immune from the primal curse, first turning tramp and sleeping in barns, and now soberly threatening to go to work. So unaccountable a frame of mind put Joe on guard; very likely Wayne was preparing for another spree and Joe was troubled.
The next morning Wayne, without explanation, laid their course toward the north; but Joe thought he knew where they were going.