Helen of the Old House Part 20

"Do I remember!" exclaimed Charlie. "I remember how you said it was your job to take the chance because I, being an officer, was worth more to the cause and because the loss of a private didn't matter so much anyhow."

John retorted quickly, "And you said that it was up to you to take the chance because it was an officer's duty to take care of his men."

"And then," said Charlie, "you told me to go to h.e.l.l, commission and all. And I swore that I'd break you for insolence and insubordination if we ever got out of the sc.r.a.pe alive."

"And so," grinned John, "we compromised by pulling it off together. And from that time on I felt different and was as proud of you and your officer's sw.a.n.k as if I had been the lucky guy myself."

"Yes," said Captain Charlie, smiling affectionately, "and I could see the grin in your eyes every time you saluted."

"No one else ever saw it, though," returned Private Ward, proudly.

"Don't think for a minute that I overlooked that either," said Captain Martin. "If any one else had seen it, I would have disciplined you for sure."

"And don't you think for a minute that I didn't know that, too,"

retorted John. "I could feel you laying for me, and every man in the company knew it just as he knew our friends.h.i.+p. That's what made us all love you so. We used to say that if Captain Charlie would just take a notion to start for Berlin and invite us to go along the war would be over right there."

Charlie Martin laughed appreciatively. Then he said, earnestly, "After all, old man, it wasn't an officers' war and it wasn't a privates' war, was it? Any more than it was the war of America, or England, or France, or Australia, or Canada--it was _our_ war. And that, I guess, is the main reason why it all came out as it did."

"Now," said John, with hearty enthusiasm, "you are talking sense."

"But it is all very different now, John," said Charlie, slowly.

"Millsburgh is not France and the Mill is not the United States Army."

"No," returned John, "and yet there is not such a lot of difference, when you come to think it out."

"We can't disguise the facts," said Captain Martin stubbornly.

"We are not going to disguise anything," retorted John. "I had an idea how you would feel over my promotion, and that is why I wanted you out here to-day. You've got to get this 'it's all very different now' stuff out of your system. So go ahead and shoot your facts."

"All right," said Charlie. "Let's look at things as they are. It was all very well for us to moon over what we would do if we ever got back home when we knew darned well our chances were a hundred to one against our ever seeing the old U.S. again. We spilled a lot of sentiment about comrades.h.i.+p and loyalty and citizens.h.i.+p and equality and all that, but--"

"Can your chatter!" snapped John. "Drag out these facts that you are so anxious to have recognized. Let's have a good look at whatever it is that makes you rough-neck sons of toil so superior to us lily-fingered employers. Go to the bat."

"Well," offered Charlie, reluctantly, "to begin with, you are a millionaire, a university man, member of select clubs; I am nothing but a common workman."

John returned, quickly, "We are both citizens of the United States. In the duties and privileges of our citizens.h.i.+p we stand on exactly the same footing, just as in the army we stood on the common ground of loyalty. And we are both equally dependent upon the industries of our country--upon the Mill, and upon each other. Exactly as we were both dependent upon the army and upon each other in France."

"You are the general manager of the Mill, practically the owner," said Charlie. "I am only one of your employees."

The son of Adam Ward answered scornfully, "Yes, over there it was Captain Charlie Martin and Private John Ward of the United States Army.

I suppose it is a lot different now that it is Captain John Ward and Private Charlie Martin of the United States Industries."

Charlie continued, "You live in a mansion in a select district on the hill, I live in a little cottage on the edge of the Flats!"

"Over there it was officers' quarters and barracks," said John, shortly.

Charlie tried again, "You wear white collars and tailored clothes at your work--I wear dirty overalls."

"We used to call 'em uniforms," barked John.

Captain Charlie hesitated a little before he offered his next fact, and when he spoke it was with a little more feeling. "There are our families to take into account too, John. Your sister--well--isn't it a fact that your sister would no more think of calling on Mary than she would think of putting on overalls and going to work in the Mill?"

It was John's turn now to hesitate.

"Don't you see?" continued Charlie, "we belong to different worlds, I tell you, John."

Deliberately Helen's brother knocked the ashes from his pipe and refilled it with thoughtful care.

Then he said, gravely, "Helen doesn't realize, as we do, old man. How could she? The girl has not had a chance to learn what the war taught us. She is exactly like thousands of other good women, and men, too, for that matter. They simply don't understand. Good Lord!" he exploded, suddenly "when I think what a worthless sn.o.b I was before I enlisted I want to kick my fool self to death. But we are drifting away from the main thought," he finished.

"Oh, I don't know," returned the other.

"I thought we were discussing the question of rank," said John.

"Well," retorted Charlie, dryly, "isn't that exactly the whole question as your sister sees it?"

"You give me a pain!" growled John. "I'll admit that Helen, right now, attaches a great deal of importance to some things that--well, that are not so very important after all. But she is no worse than I was before I learned better. And you take my word she'll learn, too. Sister visits the old Interpreter too often not to absorb a few ideas that she failed to acquire at school. He will help her to see the light, just as he helped me. But for him, I would have been nothing but a gentleman slacker myself--if there is any such animal. But what under heaven has all this to do with our relation as employer and employee in the Mill?

What effect would Mary have had on you over there if she had gone to you with 'Oh, Charlie dear, you mustn't go out in that dreadful No Man's Land to-night. It is so dirty and wet and cold. Remember that you are an officer, Charlie dear, and let Private John go.'"

Captain Charlie laughed--this new general manager of the Mill was so like the buddie he had loved in France. "Do you remember that night--"

he began, but his comrade interrupted him rudely.

"Shut up! I've got to get this thing off my chest and you've got to hear me out. This country of ours started out all right with the proposition that all men are created free and equal. But ninety per cent of our troubles are caused by our crazy notions as to what that equality really means. The rest of our grief comes from our fool claims to superiority of one sort or another. It looks to me as though you and Helen agreed exactly on this question of rank and I am here to tell you that you are both wrong."

Captain Charlie Martin sat up at this, but before he could speak John shot a question at him. "Tell me, when Private Ward saluted Captain Martin as the regulations provide, was the action held by either the officer or the private to be a recognition of the superiority of Captain Martin or the inferiority of Private Ward--was it?"

"Not that any one could notice," answered Charlie with a grin.

"You bet your life it wasn't," said John. "Well, then," he continued, "what was it that the salute recognized?"

"Why, it was the captain's _rank_."

"Exactly; and what determined that rank?"

"The number of men he commanded."

"That's it!" cried John. "The rank of the captain represented the--the"--he searched for a word--"the _oneness_ of all the men in his command. And so you see the thing that the individual private really saluted as superior to himself was the _oneness_ of all his comrades, both privates and officers in the company."

"Sure," said Charlie, looking a little puzzled, as if he did not quite see what the manager of the Mill was driving at. "The salute was merely a sign of the individual's surrender of his own personal will to the authority of the rank that represented all his fellow individuals."

"Yes," said John, "and when Jack Pers.h.i.+ng stood up there with the rest of the kings and we paraded past, were we humiliated because we were not dressed exactly like the reviewing generals? We were not. We stuck out our chests and pulled in our chins as if the whole show was framed to honor us. And that is exactly what it was, Charlie, because we were all included in Pers.h.i.+ng's rank. The army was not honoring Pers.h.i.+ng the man, it was honoring _itself_."

"Yes," said Charlie, as if he still did not quite grasp his comrade's purpose.

"Here," said John, "this is the idea. You remember how when we were kids we used to get hold of an old magnifying gla.s.s and use it as a burning gla.s.s?"

"I remember we darned near set fire to Hank Webster's barn once,"

smiled Charlie.