Ramsey Milholland Part 12

"No. You know what I mean. I mean I had to just keep callin' her 'you'; and that gets kind of freaky when you're talkin' to anybody a good while like that. When she'd be lookin' away from me, and I'd want to start sayin' something to her, you know, why, I wouldn't know how to get started exactly, without callin' her something. A person doesn't want to be always startin' off with 'See here,' or things like that."

"I don't see why you let it trouble you," said Fred. "From how you've always talked about her, you had a perfectly handy way to start off with anything you wanted to say to her."

"What with?"

"Why didn't you just say, 'Oh, you Teacher's Pet!' That would--"

"Get out! What I mean is, she called me 'Ramsey' without any bother; it seems funny I got stumped every time I started to say 'Dora.' Someway I couldn't land it, and it certainly would 'a' sounded crazy to call her 'Miss Yoc.u.m' after sittin' in the same room with her every day from the baby cla.s.s clear on up through the end of high school. That _would_ 'a'

made me out an idiot!"

"What did you call her?" Fred asked.

"Just nothin' at all. I started to call her something or other a hundred times, I guess, and then I'd balk. I'd get all ready, and kind of make a sort of a sound, and then I'd have to quit."

"She may have thought you had a cold," said Fred, still keeping his back turned.

"I expect maybe she did--though I don't know; most of the time she didn't seem to notice me much, kind of."

"She didn't?"

"No. She was too upset, I guess, by what she was thinkin' about."

"But if it hadn't been for that," Fred suggested, "you mean she'd have certainly paid more attention to who was sitting on the bench with her?"

"Get out! You know how it was. Everybody those few days thought we were goin' to have war, and she was just sure of it, and it upset her. Of course most people were a lot more upset by what those Dutchmen did to the _Lusitania_ than by the idea of war; and she seemed to feel as broken up as anybody could be about the _Lusitania_, but what got her the worst was the notion of her country wantin' to fight, she said. She really was upset, too, Fred; there wasn't any puttin' on about it. I guess that ole girl certainly must have a good deal of feeling, because, doggoned, after we'd been sittin' there a while if she didn't have to get out her handkerchief! She kept her face turned away from me--just the same as you're doin' now to keep from laughin'--but honestly, she cried like somebody at a funeral. I felt like the darndest fool!"

"I'm not laughing," said Fred, but he did not prove it by turning so that his face could be seen. "What did she say?"

"Oh, she didn't say such an awful lot. She said one kind o' funny thing though: she said she was sorry she couldn't quite control herself, but if anybody had to see her cry she minded it less because it was an old schoolmate. What struck me so kind o' funny about that is--why, it looks as if she never knew the way I always hated her so."

"Yes," said Fred. "It wasn't flattering!"

"Well, sir, it _isn't_, kind of," Ramsey agreed, musingly. "It certainly isn't when you look at it that way."

"What did you say when she said that?" Fred asked.

"Nothin'. I started to, but I sort of balked again. Well, we kept on sitting there, and afterwhile she began to talk again and got kind of excited about how no war could do anything or anybody any good, and all war was wicked, no matter what it was about, and nothin' could be good that was founded on fear and hate, and every war that ever was fought was always founded on fear and hate. She said if the Germans wanted to fight us we ought to go to meet them and tell them we wouldn't fight."

"What did you say?"

"Nothin'. I kind o' started to--but what's the use? She's got that in her head. Besides, how are you goin' to argue about a thing with a person that's crying about it? I tell you, Fred, I guess we got to admit, after all, that ole girl certainly must have a lots of heart about her, anyway. There may not be much _fun_ to her--though of course I wouldn't know hardly any way to tell about that--but there couldn't be hardly any doubt she's got a lot of feeling. Well, and then she went on and said old men made wars, but didn't fight; they left the fighting to the boys, and the suffering to the boy's mothers."

"Yes!" Fred exclaimed, and upon that he turned free of mirth for the moment. "That's the woman of it, I guess. Send the old men to do the fighting! For the matter of that, I guess my father'd about a thousand times go himself than see me and my brothers go; but Father's so fat he can't stoop! You got to be able to stoop to dig a trench, I guess! Well, suppose we sent our old men up against those Dutchmen; the Dutchmen would just kill the old men, and then come after the boys anyway, and the boys wouldn't be ready, and they'd get killed, too; and then there wouldn't be anybody but the Dutchmen left, and that'd be one fine world, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," said Ramsey. "Course I thought of that."

"Did you tell her?"

"No."

"What did you say?"

"Nothin'. I couldn't get started anyway, but, besides, what was the use?

But she didn't want the old men to go; she didn't want anybody to go."

"What did she want the country to do?" Fred asked, impatiently.

"Just what it has been doin', I suppose. Just let things simmer down, and poke along, and let them do what they like to us."

"I guess so!" said Fred. "Then, afterwhile, when they get some free time on their hands, they'll come over and make it _really_ interesting for us, because they know we won't do anything but talk. Yes, I guess the way things are settling down ought to suit Dora. There isn't goin' to be any war."

"She was pretty sure there was, though," Ramsey said, thoughtfully.

"Oh, of course she was then. We all thought so those few days."

"No. She said she thought it prob'ly wouldn't come right away, but now it was almost sure to come sometime. She said our telegrams and all the talk and so much feeling and everything showed her that the war thought that was always _in_ people somewhere had been stirred up so it would go on and on. She said she knew from the way she felt herself about the _Lusitania_ that a feeling like that in her would never be absolutely wiped out as long as she lived. But she said her other feeling about the horribleness of war taught her to keep the first feeling from breaking out, but with other people it wouldn't; and even if war didn't break out right then, it would always be ready to, all over the country, and sometime it would, though she was goin' to do her share to fight it, herself, as long as she could stand. She asked me wouldn't I be one of the ones to help her."

He paused, and after a moment Fred asked, "Well? What did you say to that?"

"Nothin'. I started to, but--"

Again Fred thought it tactful to turn and look out the window, while the agitation of his shoulders betrayed him.

"Go on and laugh! Well, so we stayed there quite a while, but before we left she got kind of more like everyday, you know, the way people do. It was half-past nine when we walked back in town, and I was commencin'

to feel kind of hungry, so I asked her if she wasn't, and she sort of laughed and seemed to be ashamed of it, as if it were a disgrace or something, but she said she guessed she was; so I left her by that hedge of lilacs near the observatory and went on over to the 'Teria and the fruit store, and got some stuffed eggs and olives and half-a-dozen peanut b.u.t.ter sandwiches and a box o' strawberries--kind of girl-food, you know--and went on back there, and we ate the stuff up. So then she said she was afraid she'd taken me away from my dinner and made me a lot of trouble, and so on, and she was sorry, and she told me good-night--"

"What did you say then?"

"Noth-- Oh, shut up! So then she skipped out to her Dorm, and I came on home."

"When did you see her next, Ramsey?"

"I haven't seen her next," said Ramsey. "I haven't seen her at all--not to speak to. I saw her on Main Street twice since then, but both times she was with some other girls, and they were across the street, and I couldn't tell if she was lookin' at me--I kind of thought not--so I thought it might look sort o' nutty to bow to her if she wasn't, so I didn't."

"And you didn't tell her you wouldn't be one of the ones to help her with her pacifism and anti-war stuff and all that?"

"No. I started to, but-- Shut up!"

Fred sat up, giggling. "So she thinks you _will_ help her. You didn't say anything at all, and she must think that means she converted you.

Why didn't you speak up?"

"Well, _I_ wouldn't argue with her," said Ramsey. Then, after a silence, he seemed to be in need of sympathetic comprehension. "It _was_ kind o'

funny, though, wasn't it?" he said, appealingly.

"What was?"

"The whole business."

"What 'whole bus'--"