Chapter VI

by Susan Glaspell

　　It would indeed seem so. Men looking from the windows of the bigshops—those great shops where army supplies were manufactured—noticedthem with much the same thought, some of them admiringly, someresentfully, as they chanced to feel about things. They drove pastbuilding after building, buildings in which hundreds of men toiled onpreparations for a possible war. The throb of those engines, sight of theperspiring faces, might suggest that rather large, a trifle extravagant,a bit cumbersome, was the price for peace. But these girls did not seemto be thinking of the possible war, or of the men who earned their breadthwarting it by preparation. One would suppose them to be just twobeautifully cared for, careless-of-life girls, thinking of what some manhad said at the dance the night before, or of the texture of the plume onsome one's hat, or, to get down to the really serious issues of life,whether or not they could afford that love of a dinner gown.

　　They left the main avenue and were winding in and out of the by-roads,roads which had all the care of a great park and all the charm of thedeep woods. Here and there were soldiers doing nothing more warlike thanraking grass or repairing roads. It seemed far removed from the stressand the struggle, place where the sense of protection but contributed tothe sense of freedom. There would come occasional glimpses of the river,the beautiful homes and great factories of the busy, prosperous,middle-western city opposite. To the other side was a town, too, a littlecity of large enterprises; to either side seethed the questions of steel,and all those attendant questions of mind and heart whose pressure grewever bigger and whose safety valves seemed tested to their uttermost. Toeither side the savage battles of peace, and there in between—anisland—the peaceful preparations for war.

　　And in such places, sheltered, detached, yet offered all she would havefrom without, had always lived Katie Jones, a favorite child of thefavored men whom precautions against war offered so serene a life;surrounded by friends who were likewise removed from the battles of peaceto the peace of possible war, knowing the social struggle only as ittouched their own detached questions of pay and rank, pleasant and stupidposts, hospitable and inhospitable commandants.

　　And into this had rushed a victim of the battles of peace! From the stonypaths of peace there to the well-kept roads of war!

　　The irony of it struck Katie anew: the incongruity of choosing sowell-regulated a place for the performance of so disorderly an act as thetaking of one's life. Choosing army headquarters as the place in which todesert from the army of life! Such an infringement of discipline asseeking self-destruction in that well-ordered spot where the machineryof destruction was so peacefully accumulated!

　　She looked covertly at Ann; she could do it, for the girl seemed for themost part unconscious of her. She was leaning back in the comfortablyrounded corner of the stanhope, her hands lax in her lap, her eyes oftenclosed—a tired child of peace drinking in the peace furnished by themilitary, was Ann. It was plain that Ann was one who could drink thingsin, could draw beauty to her as something which was of her, something,too, it seemed, of which she had been long in need. Could it be that inthe big outside world into which these new wonderings were sent, worldwhich they seemed to penetrate but such a little way, there were many whodid not find their own? Might it not be that some of the most genuineFlorentines had never been to Florence?

　　And because all this was of Ann, it was banishing the things it couldnot assimilate. Those hurt looks, fretted looks, that hard look, alreadyKate had come to know them, would come, but always to go as Ann wouldswiftly raise her head to get the song of a bird, or yield her face tothe caress of a soft spring breeze. Katie was grateful to the benignbreezes, rich with the messages of opening buds, full, tender, restoring,which could blow away hard memories and bitter visions. Yet those samebreezes had blown yesterday. Why could they not reach then? What was ithad closed the door and shut in those things that were killing Ann? Whatwere those things that had filled up and choked Ann's poor soul?

　　From a hundred different paths she kept approaching it, could not keepaway from it. One read of those things in the papers; they had alwaysseemed to concern a people apart, to be pitied, but not understood, muchless reached. Overwhelming that one who had wished to kill one's selfshould be enjoying anything! That a door so tragically shut should opento so simple a knock! Mere human voice reach that incomprehensibleoutermost brink! Were they not people different, but just people likeone's self, who had simply fallen down in the struggle, and only neededsome one to help them up, give them a cool drink and chance for amoment's rest? Were the big and the little things so close? One's ownkind and the other kind just one kind, after all?

　　"I love winding roads," Katie was saying, after a long silence. "Isuppose the thing so alluring about them is that one can never be surejust what is around the bend. When I was a little girl I used to pretendit was fairies waiting around the next curve, and I have never—"

　　But she drew in her horse sharply, for the moment at a loss; for it wasnot fairies, but Captain Prescott, riding smilingly toward them, veryhandsome on his fine mount.

　　"It's—one of our officers," she said sharply. "I—I'll have topresent him."

　　"Oh please—please!" was the girl's panic-stricken whisper. "Let me getout! I must! I can't!"

　　"You can. You must!" commanded Katie. And then she had just time forjust an imploring little: "For my sake."

　　He had halted beside them and Katie was saying, with her usual coolgaiety: "You care for this day, too, do you? We're fairly steeped in it.Ann,"—not with the courage to look squarely at her—"at this moment Ipresent your next-door neighbor. And a very good neighbor he is. We usehis telephone when our telephone is discouraged. We borrow his books andbridles; we eat his bread and salt, drink his water and wine—especiallyhis wine—we impose on him in every way known to good neighboring. Yes,to be sure, this is Miss Forrest of whom I told you last night."

　　As the Captain was looking at Ann and not seeming overpowered withamazement, looking, on the other hand, as though seeing something rarelygood to look at, Katie had the courage to look too. And at what she sawher heart swelled quite as the heart of the mother swells when the childspeaks his piece unstutteringly. Ann was doing it!—rising to theoccasion—meeting the situation. Then she had other qualities no lessvaluable than looking Florentine. That thing of doing it was a thingthat had always commanded the affectionate admiration of Katie Jones.

　　It was not what Ann did so much as her effective manner of doing nothing.One would not say she lacked assurance; one would put it the otherway—that she seemed shy. It seemed to Katie she looked for all the worldlike a startled bird, and it also seemed that Captain Prescottparticularly admired startled birds.

　　He turned and rode a little way beside them, he and Katie assumingconversational responsibilities. But Ann's smile warmed her aloofness,and her very shyness seemed well adjusted to her fragility. "And justfits in with what I told him!" gloated Kate. And though she said solittle, for some reason, perhaps because she looked so different, one gotthe impression of her having said something unusual. She had a way oflistening which conveyed the impression she could say things worthlistening to—if she chose. One took her on faith.

　　He said to her at the last, with that direct boyish smile it seemed couldnot frighten even a startled bird: "You think you are going to like ithere?" And Ann replied, slowly, a tremor in her voice, and a child'searnestness and sweetness in it too: "I think it the most beautiful placeI ever saw in all my life."

　　At the simple enough words his face softened strangely. It was withan odd gentleness he said he hoped they could all have some goodtimes together.

　　But, the moment conquered, things which it had called up swept in. Thewhole of it seemed to rush in upon her.

　　She turned harshly upon Katie. "This is—ridiculous! I'm going awayto-night!"

　　"We will talk it over this evening," replied Kate quietly. "You will waitfor that, won't you? I have something to suggest. And in the end you willbe at liberty to do exactly as you think best. Certainly there can be noquestion as to that."

　　On their way home they encountered the throng of men from theshops—dirty, greasy, alien. It was not pleasant—meeting the men whenone was driving. And yet, though certainly distasteful, they interestedKatie, perhaps just because they were so different. She wondered how theylived and what they talked about.

　　Chancing to look at Ann, she saw that stranger than the men was the lookwith which Ann regarded them. She could not make it out. But one thingshe did see—the soft spring breezes had much yet to do.