X—CHÂTEAU-THIERRY
When the United States of America finally declared war against His Satanic Majesty, Wilhelm of Prussia, Carter nodded his approval. The nation’s decision was reached at a time when he was in a particularly generous mood, for things had been coming his way for some time and he had finally settled down comfortably to enjoy them. In the preceding fall he had reached the goal of his ambition, the managership of the New York office of the Atlas Company, where he had been employed for twenty-five years. This carried a salary of seventy-five hundred—some jump from the petty twelve hundred on which he had started; even some jump from the forty-five hundred he had been drawing for the past year.
The increase allowed Carter to make several very satisfactory changes: first, to move from the rented house in Edgemere, where he had lived for five years, to a house of his own in the same town, for which he gave a warranty deed to his wife; to take his son Ben out of a commercial school and send him to Harvard for a liberal education; and to purchase a classy little runabout. There were certain other perquisites, too, which made the world a better place to live in, such as an added servant, a finer table, and, finally, the privilege of taking the eight-ten to town instead of the seven-fifteen.
Carter enjoyed all these luxuries as only a man can who has worked hard for them and waited long. He had promised them to his pretty wife the day he married her, and now, after twenty years, he had made good. It was worth something to see him, after a substantial breakfast, kiss Kitty good-by on the front porch, give a proprietary look at the neat shingled house, and stroll down the gravelly path at a leisurely pace, stopping at the gate to light a fat cigar and wave a second adieu to the little woman, who was still pretty and who he knew admired him from the crown of his head to the tips of his shoes. She was that kind.
On the eight-ten he was meeting a new class of neighbors—all eight to ten thousand dollar men, with a few above that figure, though the latter generally moved to the Heights at round twelve thousand. They were men whose lives were now polished and round like stones on the seashore within reach of the waves. They varied, mostly, in their dimensions, with of course some differences of political coloring. But they were fast becoming neutral even in politics. With America at war the old issues were disappearing.
Most of the men had long since become used to each other, but Carter, sitting in the smoker—it was almost like a private car reserved for those not due at their offices until nine—was actually thrilled by his associates. And if ever he found an opportunity to refer among them to “my son at Harvard” he was puffed up all the rest of the day. The only thing he regretted was that the war had done away with football, because in high school the lad had promised to make a name for himself in the game. Still, even that had its redeeming features: his neck was safe. Though the boy was climbing toward six feet and weighed, at eighteen, round one hundred and seventy, he threw himself into the line in those final school games with a recklessness that made Carter, looking on, catch his breath.
Carter had not been able to keep pace with the boy’s physical growth. It still seemed to him but a brief time ago that he had been carrying him round in his arms as a baby. And he had carried him for miles. He had not been able to keep his hands off him. He had loved to feel the downy head against his cheek and the frightened little heart pounding against his own. Night after night he had walked the floor with him with a sense of creation akin to God’s. And when anything was really the matter with the child Carter became a trembling wreck.
Well, those days were something to look back upon now with a smile. They even played their part in the present. They afforded the contrast necessary to allow him to extract to the last drop his final triumphant success. Some of those who had never taken the seven-fifteen did not know what it meant to take the eight-ten.
Carter, who had previously been content with one paper, now bought the Times and the Sun at the station and glanced through the headlines. He had read with a thrill of pride, as did everyone in the whole car on that early spring morning, the President’s declaration of war.
He was sitting beside Culver, of the Second National Bank, and exclaimed: “Guess that’ll make Wilhelm sit up and take notice, eh?”