Jimmie shook his head. “Coming here—well, here, you people don’t know what you have been living for. You don’t know what you want to live for in the future. Who you are. What you stand for. You’re scared of every little step that leads you into the future. And yet—the future exists, and some kind of steps must forever be walking toward it. In England they have one job above all others and they are doing it at any cost, because it has hope in it. Here, people just argue day and night—as if the whole course of man’s freedom, the existence of his soul, the promise of his future was a debatable topic—like whether or not to put new traffic signs on Main Street. Oh, hell! You can’t say it.”
Mr. Bailey started to speak and decided to say nothing. He flung the ends of several boards into the fire.
Jimmie stood. “Well, Dad. I probably will be leaving in a few days. I’ll come by.”
“You—you wouldn’t care to spend that time—with us?”
“If you want me to. I’d like it.”
“So would Mother. I dunno. She and I might change, I suppose.” His eye flashed.
“Not that I have, remember! I still think—even if we go in the war, and win, and things are all right afterward—it is not our affair. But it’s damned lonely at the house, now. Biff going—Sarah gone—you. Wilson was over last night. He’s full of conundrums he can’t answer—and tries to. Corinth certainly worked him over before he died. If the old man had lived I’d have bet Wilson would have lost the argument, in the end.”
Jimmie said, “Well—”
“Bring your stuff over before supper, huh?”
“All right.”