A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories | Page 7

William Dean Howells
and he's perfectly
fascinating. So's Dick Burton, with his empty sleeve; he's one of the
recruiting officers, and there's nobody so popular with the girls. You
can't think how funny it is, Professor Elmore, to see the old college
buildings used for barracks. Dick says it's much livelier than it was
when he was a student there."
"I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the professor. "Does he find
plenty of volunteers?"
"Well, you know," the young girl explained, "that the old style of
volunteering is all over."
"No, I didn't know it."
"Yes. It's the bounties now that they rely upon, and they do say that it
will come to the draft very soon, now. Some of the young men have
gone to Canada. But everybody despises them. Oh, Mrs. Elmore, I
should think you'd be so glad to have the professor off here, and
honorably out of the way!"
"I'm dishonorably out of the way; I can never forgive myself for not
going to the war," said Elmore.
"Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody feels that way about it
now! As Dick Burton says, we've come down to business. I tell you,
when you see arms and legs off in every direction, and women going
about in black, you don't feel that it's such a romantic thing any more.
There are mighty few engagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment

sets off; no presentation of revolvers in the town hall; and some of the
widows have got married again; and that I don't think is right. But what
can they do, poor things? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs.
Elmore?"
"Tom Friar's widow! Is Tom Friar dead?"
"Why, of course! One of the first. I think it was Ball's Bluff. Well, she's
married. But she married his cousin, and as Dick Burton says, that isn't
so bad. Isn't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing all her boys,--all five of them?
It does seem to bear too hard on some families. And then, when you see
every one of those six Armstrongs going through without a scratch!"
"I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at a standstill. The streets
must look rather dreary."
"Business at a standstill!" exclaimed Lily. "What has Sue been writing
you all this time? Why, there never was such prosperity in Patmos
before! Everybody is making money, and people that you wouldn't
hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and inviting the old
college families. You ought to see the residences and business blocks
going up all over the place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos
now. You remember George Fenton, Mrs. Elmore?"
"Mr. Haskell's clerk?"
"Yes. Well, he's made a fortune out of an army contract; and he's going
to marry--the engagement came out just before I left--Bella Stearns."
At these words Mrs. Elmore sat upright,--the only posture in which the
fact could be imagined. "Lily!"
"Oh, I can tell you these are gay times in America," triumphed the
young girl. She now put her hand to her mouth and hid a yawn.
"You're sleepy," said Mrs. Elmore. "Well, you know the way to your
room. You'll find everything ready there, and I shall let you go alone.
You shall commence being at home at once."

"Yes, I am sleepy," assented Lily; and she promptly said her
good-nights and vanished; though a keener eye than Elmore's might
have seen that her promptness had a color--or say light--of hesitation in
it.
But he only walked up and down the room, after she was gone, in
unheedful distress. "Gay times in America! Good heavens! Is the child
utterly heartless, Celia, or is she merely obtuse?"
"She certainly isn't at all like Sue," sighed Mrs. Elmore, who had not
had time to formulate Lily's defence. "But she's excited now, and a
little off her balance. She'll be different to-morrow. Besides, all
America seems changed, and the people with it. We shouldn't have
noticed it if we had stayed there, but we feel it after this absence."
"I never realized it before, as I did from her babble! The letters have
told us the same thing, but they were like the histories of other times.
Camps, prisoners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden
gains, social upheavals,--it is the old, hideous story of war come true of
our day and country. It's terrible!"
"She will miss the excitement," said Mrs. Elmore. "I don't know exactly
what we shall do with her. Of course, she can't expect the attentions
she's been used to in Patmos, with those young men."
Elmore stopped, and stared at his wife. "What do you mean, Celia?"
"We don't go into society at all, and she doesn't speak Italian. How
shall we amuse her?"
"Well, upon my word, I don't know that we're obliged to provide her
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