The roar of the plant came in through the open window. A freight car was
being loaded with finished shells. As fast as it was filled, another
car was shunted along the spur to take its place. Over in Germany, in
hundreds of similar plants, similar shells were being hurried to the
battle line, to be hurled against the new army that was soon to cross
the seas.
All those men, and back of every man, a woman.
Jackson had stopped. Joey was regarding him with stealthy admiration,
and holding his breast bone very high. Already in his mind Joey was a
soldier.
"You did not say in your note why you wanted to see me, Mr. Spencer."
He roused himself with a visible effort.
"I sent for you, yes," he said. "I sent--I'll tell you why I sent for
you, Jackson. I've been meaning to do it for several weeks. Now that
this has come I'm more than glad I did so. You can't keep your family on
what you are getting. That's certain."
"My wife is going to help me, sir. The boy will soon be weaned. Then she
intends to get a position. She was a milliner when we were married."
"But--Great Scott! She ought not to leave a child as young as that."
Jackson smiled.
"She's going to fix that, all right. She wants to do it. And we're all
right so far I had saved a little."
Then there were women like that! Women who would not only let their men
go to war, but who would leave their homes and enter the struggle for
bread, to help them do it.
"She says it's the right thing," volunteered Jackson, proudly. Women who
felt that a man going into the service was a right thing. Women who saw
war as a duty to be done, not a wild adventure for the adventurous.
"You ought to be very proud of her," he said slowly. "There are not many
like that."
"Well," Jackson said, apologetically, "they'll come round, sir. Some of
them kind of hate the idea, just at first. But I look to see a good many
doing what my wife's doing."
Clayton wondered grimly what Jackson would think if he knew that at that
moment he was passionately envious of him, of his uniform, of the youth
that permitted him to wear that uniform, of his bronzed skin, of his
wife, of his pride in that wife.
"You're a lucky chap, Jackson," he said. "I sent for you because I
wanted to say that, as long as you are in the national service, I shall
feel that you are on a vacation"--he smiled at the word--"on pay. Under
those circumstances, I owe you quite a little money."