“Every one of us at home would give anything he could to join you on the firing line. I know I would, if I were a man. In the meantime I am ‘doing my bit’ by knitting Red Cross sweaters and preparing gauze. I am attending a class in hospitalization, so that I can help out in our local hospitals in case all the trained nurses are accepted for overseas duty.
“Papa is very proud of you. When he learned that you had been recommended for a captaincy, he said that he just knew that you had it in you, because you came from one of the best Southern families. Father has so much responsibility now, keeping the niggers at work. He says that his overseers are working day and night to keep up the production of cotton. Cotton is used in the soldiers’ uniforms and in making gun-cotton, so father really feels as though he’s doing his bit in fighting the Hun.
“Cousin George says he wishes he were in your shoes, but the local draft board has ruled that his services in editing a newspaper are indispensable, and of more value to the country than shouldering a rifle.
“Howard Pinkney—the man you were so jealous of—foolish boy!—still comes around and proposes regularly. But there’s no chance, is there, against my soldier boy? I hate these war profiteers, but papa says Howard is becoming a splendid business man and doing a real service to the nation by supplying the arsenals with walnut for rifle stocks. It seems that walnut is the best wood for that purpose, and at the beginning of the war Howard very thoughtfully managed to collect most of it in the South. He said that he would have liked to follow your example, but I suppose he is doing more by ‘carrying on’ right at home, seeing that the boys over there are supplied with rifle stocks.
“You see, everybody’s ‘doing his bit,’ one way or another. I think it is splendid! It’s the only way that our Anglo-Saxon supremacy can be maintained. Even at our dances and receptions the note is patriotic. We invite all the officers from the camps near-by and do our best to make them feel as if they had not been forgotten. We always end up with the Star-Spangled Banner and everyone stands up so straight and sings right from the heart!
“A few foreigners and radicals have given us some trouble by not subscribing their full quota of Liberty Bonds, and the committee of twenty-one has daubed their houses yellow. Some have even asked for higher wages, because the war has made prices go up so high. But they don’t realize their sacred duty to their country. There is talk about the negroes revolting. Some agitators have been at work amongst them. They’re demanding accountings and cash, or rather hinting at it. They wouldn’t dare demand it. It sounds like Bolshevism to dad! A Socialist came here to speak—but the committee rode him out of town on a rail before he could get a meeting and spread disregard for Americanism and the Constitution.
“Dad and George and Howard say that the old Ku Klux Klan ought to be revived to teach the negroes their place and keep the agitators and other carpetbaggers from invading the South.
“But I mustn’t bore you any more with this. I simply wanted to let you know how the war was affecting the South. Perhaps by this time the war will be over. I just know when the Americans get upon the field of battle they will show the rest of the Allies a thing or two about fighting.”
Hamilton turned from his reading and looked out of the window. The trees had turned gaunt and bare, heralds of the approaching winter. People were hurrying to and fro. Carriages carrying notables were dashing down the boulevards. Officers in brilliant uniforms were moving about the streets. Paris, following its first intoxication of victory, was going about the complicated business of determining the conditions of peace. Wilson’s fourteen points were being adroitly broken. New conceptions of international relations, the League of Nations, the autonomy of Montenegro—bizarre and pathetic national points of view—were being molded to suit the nations of the world. Pompous international tailors were cutting up the economic fabric of Europe, woven in the loom of the centuries, and trying to form coats to clothe a confusion of political and sentimental ideas of nationalism. Experts were laying out the patterns. No two agreed exactly.
Hamilton resumed his perusal of the activities of Corinth during the last phase of the war, the town gossip, the state of health of numerous individuals. He crushed the letter and leaned back against his pillow. Thoughtless, chattering, charming Margaret! If he could only crush her alluring girlishness to him, and be aware of her pretty babbling, without listening to it; simply nodding from time to time and putting in a few words!