"Over there?"
"The war," said Sara Lee. "I was just thinking about all those women
over there--like Anna, you know. They--they had babies, and got
everything ready for them. And then the babies grew up, and they're all
getting killed."
"It's horrible," said Aunt Harriet. "Do you want another blanket? It's
cold to-night."
Sara Lee did not wish another blanket.
"I'm a little worried about your Uncle James," said Aunt Harriet, at the
door. "He's got indigestion. I think I'll make him a mustard plaster."
She prepared to go out then, but Sara Lee spoke from her white bed.
"Aunt Harriet," she said, "I don't think I'll ever get married."
"I said that too, once," said Aunt Harriet complacently. "What's got
into your head now?"
"I don't know," Sara Lee replied vaguely. "I just--What's the use?"
Aunt Harriet was conscious of a hazy impression of indelicacy. Coming
from Sara Lee it was startling and revolutionary. In Aunt Harriet's
world young women did not question their duty, which was to marry,
preferably some one in the neighborhood, and bear children, who would be
wheeled about that same neighborhood in perambulators and who would
ultimately grow up and look after themselves.
"The use?" she asked tartly.
"Of having babies, and getting to care about them, and then--There will
always be wars, won't there?"
"You turn over and go to sleep," counseled Aunt Harriet. "And stop
looking twenty years or more ahead." She hesitated. "You haven't
quarreled with Harvey, have you?"
Sara Lee turned over obediently.
"No. It's not that," she said. And the door closed.
Perhaps, had she ever had time during the crowded months that followed,
Sara Lee would have dated certain things from that cold frosty night in
December when she began to question things. For after all that was what
it came to. She did not revolt. She questioned.
She lay in her white bed and looked at things for the first time. The
sky had seemed low that night. Things were nearer. The horizon was
close. And beyond that peaceful horizon, to the east, something was
going on that could not be ignored. Men were dying. Killing and dying.
Men who had been waited for as Anna watched for her child.
Downstairs she could hear Aunt Harriet moving about. The street was
quiet, until a crowd of young people--she knew them by their
voices--went by, laughing.
"It's horrible," said Sara Lee to herself. There was a change in her,
but she was still inarticulate. Somewhere in her mind, but not
formulated, was the feeling that she was too comfortable. Her peace was
a cheap peace, bought at no price. Her last waking determination was to
finish the afghan quickly and to knit for the men at the war.