Dorothy tossed her head, but her eyes twinkled, and suddenly she laughed.  “You know I like you—­heaps!  You’re just jealous.”

“Reckon you said it!  But I only got one ear laid back yet.  Wait till I see that boy.”

“Oh, pshaw!  You can’t help being nice to him.”

“And I got comp’ny.”

“But really I want to talk seriously, if you will let me.  Lorry has been talking about enlisting.  He didn’t say that he was going to enlist, but he has been talking about it so much.  Do you think he will?”

“Well, now, missy that’s a right peart question.  I know if I was his age I’d go.  Most any fella that can read would.  I been readin’ the papers for two years, and b’ilin’ inside.  I reckon Lorry’s just woke up to what’s goin’ on.  We been kind of slow wakin’ up out here.  Folks livin’ off in this neck of the woods gets to thinkin’ that the sun rises on their east-line fence and sets on their west line.  It takes somethin’ strong to make ’em recollec’ the sun’s got a bigger job’n that.  But I admire to say that when them kind of folks gets started onct they’s nothin’ ever built that’ll stop ’em.  If I get elected I aim to tell some folks over to the State House about this here war.  And I’m goin’ to start by talkin’ about what we got to set straight right here to home first.  They can feel what’s goin’ on to home.  It ain’t all print.  And they got to feel what’s goin’ on over there afore they do anything.”

“It’s all too terrible to talk about,” said Dorothy.  “But we must do our share, if only to keep our self-respect, mustn’t we?”

“You said it—­providin’ we got any self-respect to keep.”

“But why don’t our young men volunteer.  They are not cowards.”

“It ain’t that.  Suppose you ask Lorry why.”

“I shouldn’t want to know him if he didn’t go,” said Dorothy.

“Missy, I’m lovin’ you for sayin’ that!  If all the mothers and sisters and sweethearts was like that, they wouldn’t be no conscription.  But they ain’t.  I’m no hand at understandin’ wimmin-folks, but I know the mother of a strappin’ young fella in this town that says she would sooner see her boy dead in her front yard than for him to go off and fight for foreigners.  She don’t know what this country’s got to fight for pretty quick or she wouldn’t talk like that.  And she ain’t the only one.  Now, when wimmin talks that way, what do you expect of men?  I reckon the big trouble is that most folks got to see somethin’ to fight afore they get goin’.  Fightin’ for a principle looks just like poundin’ air to some folks.  I don’t believe in shootin’ in the dark.  How come, I’ve plugged a rattlesnake by just shootin’ at the sound when he was coiled down where I couldn’t see him.  But this ain’t no kind of talk for you to listen to, missy.”

“I—­you won’t say that I spoke of Lorry?”

“Bless your heart, no!  And he’ll figure it out hisself.  But don’t you get disap’inted if he don’t go right away.  It’s mighty easy to set back and say ‘Go!’ to the other fella; and listen to the band and cheer the flag.  It makes a fella feel so durned patriotic he is like to forget he ain’t doin’ nothin’ hisself.