The Iron Game Part 16

"There was really no war talk, Vint, except such war as women always raise, contention--"

"I object, Jack, to your generalization," Olympia retorted. "It is a habit of boyishness and immaturity.--He said a moment ago" (she turned to Vincent) "that women loved crying, and then sneaked out by a very shallow evasion."

"I'll leave it to Vint: All women love babies; babies do nothing but cry; therefore, women love crying; there couldn't be a syllogism more irrefutable."

"Unless it be that all women love liars," Vincent ventured, jocosely.

"How do you prove that?"

"All men are liars; women love men; therefore--"

"Oh, pshaw! you have to a.s.sume in that premise. I don't in mine. It is notorious that women love babies, while you have only the spiteful saying of a very uncertain old prophet for your major--"

"Whose major?" Rosa asked, appearing suddenly. "I'll have you to know, sir, that this major is mamma's, and no one else can have, hold, or make eyes at him."

"It was the major in logic we were making free with," Jack mumbled, laughing. "I hope logic isn't a heresy in your new Confederacy, as religion was in the French Const.i.tution of '93?"

Rosa looked at Olympia, a little perplexed, and, seating herself on the cot with Vincent, where she could caress him furtively, said, with piquant deliberation:

"I don't know about logic, but we've got everything needed to make us happy in the Montgomery Const.i.tution."

"Have you read it?" Jack asked, innocently.

"How insulting! Of course I have. I read it the very first thing when it appeared in the newspapers."

"Catch our Northern women doing that!" Jack interjected, loftily. "There is my learned sister, she doesn't know the Const.i.tution from Plato's Dialogues."

"Indeed, I do not; nor do I know Plato's Dialogues," Olympia returned, quite at ease in this state of ignorance.

"Wherein does the Montgomery Const.i.tution differ from the old one?" Jack asked, looking at Vincent.

"I'm blessed if I know. I've read neither. I did read the Declaration of Independence once at a Fourth-of-July barbecue. I always thought that was the Const.i.tution. Indeed, every fellow about here does! You know in the South the women do all the thinking for the men. Rosa keeps my political conscience."

"Well, then, Lord High Chancellor, tell us the vital articles in the Montgomery doc.u.ment that have inspired you to arm Mars for the conflict, plunge millions into strife and thousands into hades, as Socrates would have said, employing his method?" Jack continued derisively.

"Our Const.i.tution a.s.sures us the eternal right to own our own property."

"Slaves?"

"Yes."

"No one denied you that right, so far as the law went, under the old; it was only the justice, the humanity, that was questioned. The right would have endured a hundred years, perhaps forever, if you had kept still--"

"Come, Jack, I won't listen to politics," Olympia cried, with a warning look.

"No, the time for talk is past; it is battle, and G.o.d defend the right!"

Rosa said, solemnly.

"And you may be sure he will," Jack added, softly, as though to himself.

"But we've got far away from the crying and the babies," Vincent began, when Jack interrupted, fervently:

"Thank Heaven!"

"You monster!" the two girls cried in a breath.

"No, I can't conceive a sillier paradox than 'A babe in the house is a well-spring of joy.' A woman must have written it first. Now, my idea of perfect happiness for a house is to have two wounded warriors like Vincent and me, tractable, amiable, always ready to join in rational conversation and make love if necessary, providing we're encouraged."

"Really, Olympia, your Northern men are not what I fancied," Rosa cried, with a laugh.

"What did you fancy them?"

"Oh, ever so different, from this--this saucy fellow--modest, timid, shy; needing ever so much encouragement to--to--"

"Claim their due?" Jack added, slyly.

"Well, there is one that doesn't require much encouragement to claim everything that comes in his way," Rosa retorts, and Olympia adds:

"And to spare my feelings you won't name him now."

"Exactly," said Rosa.

"How touching!" exclaimed Vincent.

"I left all my blood to enrich your soil, or I'd blush," replied Jack.

"Oh, no; it won't enrich the soil; it will bring out a crop of Johnny Jump-ups, a weed that we don't relish in the South," retorted Rosa.

"Ah, Jack, you're hit there!--Rosa, I'm proud of you. This odious Yankee needs combing down; he ran over us so long at college that he is conceited in his own impudence," and Vincent exploded in shouts of laughter.

"I fear you're not a botanist, Miss Rosa. It's 'Jack in the pulpit' that will spring from Northern blood, and they'll preach such truths that the very herbage will bring the lesson of liberty and toleration to you."

"What is this very serious discussion, my children?" Mrs. Atterbury said, beaming sweetly upon the group. "I couldn't imagine what had started Vincent in such boisterous laughter; and now, that I come, Mr.

Jack is as serious as we were at school when Madame Clarice told us of our sins."

"Jack was telling his, mamma, and that is still more serious than to hear one's own," Vincent said, grinning at the moralist.

"But, to be serious a moment, I have written to my old friend General Robert Lee, of Arlington, about Miss Perley. I know that he will grant her permission to take Richard home with her, and the question now is whether it is safe to let them go together alone?" Mrs. Atterbury addressed the question to Olympia, making no account of Jack.

"Oh, let us leave the decision until you get General Lee's answer. If they get the message in Acredale that d.i.c.k is safe and sound, I don't see why they need go back before we do. I shall be able to travel in a few weeks. If the roads were not so rickety I wouldn't be afraid to set out now," Jack answered.

"Impossible! You can't leave for a month yet, if then," Vincent proclaimed, authoritatively. "I know what gunshot wounds are: you think they are healed, and begin fooling about, when you find yourself laid up worse than ever. There's no hurry. The campaign can't begin before October. I'm as anxious to be back as you are, but I don't mean to stir before October. Perhaps you think it will be dull here? Just wait until you are strong enough to knock about a bit; we shall have royal rides.

We'll go to Williamsburg and see the oldest college in the country.

We'll go down the James, and you shall see some of the richest lands in the world. We'll get a lot of fellows out from Richmond and have our regular barbecue in September. We wind up the season here every year with a grand dance, and Olympia shall lead the Queen Anne minuet with mamma's kinsman, General Lee, who is the President's chief of staff."

"This doesn't sound much like soldiering," Jack said, dreamily.

"No. When in the field, let us fight; when at home, let us be merry."