Broken to the Plow | Page 9

slap in the face, it had been borne in upon him that he was not any of the fine things he imagined. He was sure that his insolent guest, Hilmer, had not meant to be disagreeable at the moment when he had said:
"Stiffening the backbone of the middle class is next to impossible!"
"The middle class"! The phrase had brought up even Helen Starratt with a round turn. One might have called them both peasants with equal temerity. No, Hilmer had not made that point consciously, and therein lay its sting.
To-night, as he accomplished his accustomed pilgrimage to the tangible shrine of his ancestors, and stood leaning against the gate which opened upon the garden that had smiled upon his mother's wooing, he determined once and for all to establish his position in life... Did he belong to the middle class, and, granting the premises, was it a condition from which one could escape or a fixed heritage that could neither be abandoned nor denied? In a country that made flamboyant motions toward democracy, he knew that the term was used in contempt, if not reproach. Had the class itself brought on this disesteem? Did it really exist and what defined it? Was it a matter of scant worldly possessions, or commonplace brain force, or breeding, or just an attitude of mind? Was it a term invented by the crafty to dash cold water upon the potential unity of a scattered force? Was it a scarecrow for frightening greedy and resourceful flocks from a concerted assault upon the golden harvests of privilege?... The questions submerged him in a swift flood. He did not know ... he could not tell. Unaccustomed as he was to thinking in the terms of group consciousness, he fell back, naturally, upon the personal aspects of the case. He was sure of one thing--Hilmer's contempt and scorn. In what class did Hilmer place himself? Above or below?... But the answer came almost before it was framed--Hilmer looked down upon him. That almost told the story, but not quite. Had Hilmer climbed personally to upper circles or had the strata in which he found himself embedded been pushed up by the slow process of time? Had the term "middle class" become a misnomer? Was it really on the lowest level now? Perhaps it was ... perhaps it always had been... But so was the foundation of any structure. Foundation?... The thought intrigued him, but only momentarily. Who wanted to bear the crushing weight of arrogant and far-flung battlements?
He retraced his steps, his thoughts still busy with Hilmer. Here was a typical case of what America could yield to the nature that had the insolence to ravish her. America was still the tawny, primitive, elemental jade who gave herself more readily to a rough embrace than a soft caress. She reserved her favors for those who wrested them from her...she had no patience with the soft delights of persuasion. It was strange how much rough-hewn vitality had poured into her embrace from the moth-eaten civilization of the Old World. Starratt was only a generation removed from a people who had subdued a wilderness ... he was not many generations removed from a people who wrestled naked with God for a whole continent--that is, they had begun to wrestle; the years that had succeeded found them still eager and shut-lipped for the conflict. They had abandoned the struggle only when they had found their victory complete. Naturally, soft days had followed. Was eternal conflict the price of strength? Starratt found himself wondering. And was he a product of these soft days, the rushing whirlwinds of Heaven stilled, the land drowsy with the humid heat of a slothful noonday? He had never thought of these things before. Even when he had thrilled to the vision of line upon line of his comrades marching away to the blood-soaked fields of France he had surrendered to a primitive emotion untouched by the poetry of deep understanding. He thrilled not because he knew that these people were doing the magnificent, the decent thing ... but because he merely felt it. He had his faiths, but he had not troubled to prove them ... he had not troubled even to doubt them.
His disquiet sharpened all of his perceptions. He never remembered a time when the cool fragrance of the night had fallen upon his senses with such a personal caress. He had come out into its starlit presence flushed with narrow, sordid indignation ... smarting under the trivial lashes which insolence and circumstance had rained upon his vanity. His walk in the dusky silence had not stilled his restlessness, but it had given his impatience a larger scope ... and as he stood for one last backward glimpse at the twinkling magnificence of this February