“If I come here, may I live in one of those cunning new bungalettes?”
“Indeed not! There are some nice houses in town.”
“I’m sick of nice houses. I want to rough it. In the next war millions of women will live in tents the way the men do. Those shanties would be considered palaces in Belgium and northern France. In fact, any number of women are over there now building huts for the poor souls.”
Davidge grew more and more wretched. He could not understand such a twisted courtship. His sweetheart did not want jewels and luxuries and a life of wealthy ease. Her only interest in him seemed to be that he would let her live in a shanty, wear overalls, and pound steel all day for union wages.
CHAPTER III
An eloquent contrast with Marie Louise was furnished by Jake Nuddle. He was of the ebb type. He was degenerating into a shirker, a destroyer, a money-maniac, a complainer of other men’s successes. His labor was hardly more than a foundation for blackmailing. He loved no country, had not even a sense of following the crowd. He called the Star-spangled Banner a dirty rag, and he wanted to wipe his feet on it. He was useless, baneful, doomed.
Marie Louise was coming into a new Canaan. What she wanted was work for the work’s sake, to be building something and thereby building herself, to be helping her country forward, to be helping mankind, poor and rich. The sight of the flag made her heart ache with a rapture of patriotism. She had the urge to march with an army.
Marie Louise was on the up grade, Jake on the down. They met at the gate of the shipyard.