Part 9

Robert looked from his father to his mother. Her eyes faltered.

“No, we sold him,” said Mr. Hamilton.

“Getting old, I suppose.”

“Oh, have I told you? We’ve got another captain in our set,” asked Margaret suddenly. “Who do you think? Howard Pinkney. He got his commission just about the time I got that awful letter telling me you were wounded. I’ll never forget how I felt.”

“Pinkney?”

“Oh, this town is full of ’em,” the elder Hamilton laughed, with the faintest suggestion of irony in his voice. “Captains and majors.”

“Oh, no, he’s a real captain. He showed me his commission. He’s captain of our home guards, and he says it’s the same rank as captain in the infantry or artillery. Is it?”

“Well, that’s a rather embarrassing question. But perhaps we could say that it’s not _exactly_ the same thing, although it is very nearly.”

“Oh, of course, you did the _real_ fighting. It was wonderful how you risked your life and I’m proud of you, oh, ever so proud. I’ve had a service flag in the window ever since you left, with only one star--for you. Howard wanted me to have two stars, but, of course, he stayed at home. He’s one of the organizers now of the Trick Track Tribe. Or is that a secret, Mr. Hamilton? He’ll be asking Robert to join anyway.”

“It’s probably a pretty open secret.”

“Trick Track Tribe? What an odd name. Trick Track. It sounds like the cocking of an old-fashioned musket. Trick Track.”

“That’s just what it’s supposed to be. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s to revive the old Southern chivalry and maintain the superiority of the white race and promote Americanism.”

“That sounds pretty ambitious,” laughed Robert. “I really didn’t know the white race was in danger. But if the Trick Tracks can do all that, I’m for them.”

Now the car was rounding a corner and the next minute the Hamilton residence appeared at the end of a row of tall trees. There were the familiar pillars, rising from the floor of the porch to the cornice; the little grilled window just over the door, looking out from the landing on the stairs and through which Hamilton had often peered as a boy; the porch swing; the green shutters, breaking up the mass of white; the lattice under the porch, behind which Hamilton had often prowled, playing it was a bandit’s cave. The grass was as green and the vines clambered as thickly about the sides of the home as his memory had pictured.

“Your room, dear, is just the way you left it,” remarked Mrs. Hamilton as the car drove up the path with a scream of the siren.

They dismounted, George springing down in time to open the door and then bringing up the rear with the suitcases. Robert had expected to see the colored servants at the door--Mammy Chloe, who baked memorial corn fritters and candied yams, and her two daughters, Clorabelle and Susy May (sometimes facetiously called Chlorine by Robert), the housemaids, and Sam, a white-haired black of uncertain age who looked after the horses, trimmed the grass and otherwise assisted George. But only Mammy Chloe appeared, in her best apron, a clean, white kerchief around her head, rocking her fat sides in happiness.

“Lor’ bless us if it ain’t Genril Robert hisself.”

“Only captain so far, Mammy Chloe,” Robert corrected her, as he took her hands in his and looked down at her. “Have you got any of those corn fritters ready for me? I’m sure hungry.” This tribute to her culinary skill pleased her prodigiously.

“Corn fritters ain’t nothing to what I done fix for you all. An’ I won’t tell you what they is. You jes’ wait till come dinner. My lan’ sakes, what all them Huns do to you? You wait! You old Mammy Chloe get you fat again, so Miss Margaret won’t know you.”

After George had deposited the suitcases in his room and Mrs. Hamilton had kissed Robert and closed the door gently behind her, Robert sank down in his chair. He was tired and warm. He had almost forgotten about his wound, yet the simple matter of traveling for thirty-six hours was telling on him. He slowly unbuttoned his coat, unfastened his puttees and unlaced his shoes. It would be a good half-hour before dinner.

He removed a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and began looking about the room. It was exactly as he had left it. The same high-ceilinged room, with its friendly ivory woodwork; the same inviting bay windows, half hidden by vines, with the circular window seats; the same rosewood furniture. In the center of one wall was the fireplace and on either side the bookcases lined with the old textbooks and his favorite volumes. Home again.

Robert arose, undressed and slipped into his bathrobe. He walked about the room to verify the presence of certain objects. Yes, even his class pipe was there. He removed his wrist watch and laid it on the dressing table. There would just be time enough for a shower.

His spirits rose under the stinging spray and he began humming’ an old army tune:

“_I wanna go home, Gee, but I wanna go home. The bullets they whistle, The cannons they roar; I don’t wanna go back to the trenches no more. I wanna sail ’cross the sea Where the Allemand can’t get at me. Oh, my, I’m too young to die. Gee, but I wanna go home!_”

As he rubbed himself with a bath towel he thought: “Mammy Chloe is right at that. I am pretty thin.” He flexed his muscles and posed before the mirror. Not so much thinner than when he had left home. He had gained almost fifteen pounds in the army and lost it all and a little more in the hospital. The scar was barely visible. He remembered the wound that his grandfather had received in the Civil War and wondered whether inquisitive children would ever ask him to show his scar. He inspected his face in the mirror. Not such a bad job for shaving on the train. He threw on his bathrobe and returned to his room. In the closet, carefully protected by a wardrobe bag hung his dinner clothes, perfectly pressed. After he had dressed he again stood before the mirror. Civilian clothes felt loose. They felt as though he had forgotten to put something on. They were careless, unrestrained, individualistic garments.

“Gee, but I wanna go home,” he sang.

When Captain Hamilton, in conventional dinner clothes, reached the foot of the stairs it was to shock his mother and Margaret.

“Wherever did you get those?” asked Margaret.

“Why, dear,” pleaded Mrs. Hamilton, “I thought you would surely wear your uniform. A few friends are coming over and I’m sure they would like to see you in uniform.”

Robert grinned.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just thought it would be rather nice to slip into these for a change. You know I’ve worn olive-drab for two years now.”

“But they will want to see you in uniform,” urged his mother.

“And Howard is going to be here and I do want him to see you in uniform. He’s going to wear his,” added Margaret.

“Which is all the more reason why I shouldn’t. Anyway my uniform’s too hot, and my gabardine is in the trunk.”

But Mrs. Hamilton triumphantly pointed to the fact that George had just returned from another trip to the depot with Robert’s locker trunks and would carry them up in another minute, and Captain Hamilton was forced to turn back and resume the habiliments of war. But he did it happily. The last time, he thought.

XIX

Howard Pinkney did come, as Margaret had predicted, and, as she had likewise predicted, he wore his captain’s uniform. He made some sort of explanation. He was either coming from an affair or going to one which all the officers of the home guards were to attend or had attended, and there was no time left for changing into “civies.” He was very apologetic about it and very effulgent in his praise of the returning captain.

Hamilton’s dislike for Pinkney was reborn. He had disliked him in childhood because Howard had rosy cheeks--an unforgivable offense in a boy. He had punched his nose for that reason many, many years ago, although the announced reason was that Pinkney “was too darned smart.” And having harmed him for no legitimate reason, he naturally disliked him still more. Pinkney, however, in spite of Robert’s opinion, had turned out disappointingly successful. He had stepped out of college into a large lumber firm, showed a precocious grasp of business principles and within two years had been made vice-president. During the war he had made his spectacular coup of cornering most of the available Southern walnut used in fashioning rifle stocks.

For a young man he had a peculiarly set--Hamilton called it “ossified”--mind. He accepted traditional ideas as firmly as do men of twice his years and without youth’s questioning of them. In business he had a whole set of principles that Hamilton never knew existed. He had ideas about the position of the South in industry and about the South’s contribution to world commerce. Things that no healthy young man would think twice about. Where Hamilton would be interested in discussing a football game or a play, Pinkney would discuss the extension of the federal reserve system.

To Robert, business was a mere incident in life, a necessary evil whereby one provided one’s self with the means of enriching and enjoying it. To Pinkney, business was one of life’s essentials. He took it quite as seriously as tennis or riding. A surprising fellow.

Tennis and riding he did well--efficiently--that was the word. Just as he did everything else. It was part of his physical life. He had departments--physical, mental, moral, social, and all separated from each other like boxes in a vault. In order to succeed one must give so much time and effort to each of these divisions. One must play tennis or take some other suitable form of exercise every day so as to keep in trim for the more serious duties of life. When Pinkney went for a walk, he didn’t say: “I’m going out to commune with nature,” which is sentimental, but understandable, or “I’m going along a picturesque road,” or simply “I’m going for a walk,” but “I’m going to get an hour’s exercise.”

He had an annoying way of keeping up with the times in everything. He even subscribed to the New York Times so that he might profit by the book reviews and bought the volumes there recommended.

He attended church and the most important social functions with regularity and was looked up to everywhere. He was pointed out as an example of the Southern young man in business. On public committees he frequently represented the young business man. Nothing could keep him from becoming in time president of his firm, a bank director, president of the Chamber of Commerce and a college trustee.

It was only characteristic that Howard Pinkney should still aspire to Margaret’s hand long after she had chosen Robert, and it was also characteristic of him that he should neither show nor feel the slightest animosity towards his successful rival. He treated him with all the charity that he used toward a formidable business competitor.

Pinkney was undeniably handsome in his concentrated, alert way. He was nearly as tall as Robert, slighter-framed but heavier, with straight, light brown hair combed back from a sloping forehead. His features were more regular, less rugged than Robert’s and his gray eyes were intelligent and intense. Hamilton noticed all this as Pinkney first entered the room and wondered why Margaret had so often rejected him in favor of himself. It was Howard’s only failure.

Howard, as an officer of the home guard, somehow supererogated to himself the function of reintroducing Hamilton to his townsfolk.

“Judge, here is Captain Hamilton. Isn’t he looking splendid after his harassing experiences in France? We must have him recount them to us some evening at the club. Lieutenant Brownlow--Mr. Brownlow is one of the lieutenants in the guards. He was exempt because of fallen arches--Lieutenant Brownlow has been longing to see you and I have taken the liberty of inviting him. Of course he knows all about your splendid exploits. Mr. Jarvis, our hero has come back again. Have you a card with you? We must bring him into the Trick Track Tribe. Yes, here it is. Thank you. Give it to me when you have filled it out.”

Hamilton slipped the card into his pocket without reading it. He was becoming tired of meeting so many people. He had always looked forward to his home coming as to an opportunity for unlimited rest. And here he was in the midst of a buzz of many conversations, shaking hands, answering a hundred questions, standing up, moving around to different groups, always smiling. Of course, he understood, this was his first night at home. One had to sacrifice one’s self to the duties of society. But he heartily wished that it was over. He wished, above all, that the home guard would suddenly mobilize for some reason and that Pinkney would be called out.

In Paris he had enjoyed the salons, the stimulating exchange of ideas; but in his own home he wished to be alone with his parents, and perhaps with Margaret. His parents, he perceived, were probably wishing the same thing. They kept throwing little smiles at him and to each other and Mrs. Hamilton kept coming over to squeeze his hand. How beautiful his mother really must have been when she was, say, Margaret’s age. He loved her soft gray hair. And how distinguished his father looked, with his immaculate moustache and goatee.

Robert moved to a little group of men who were discussing some subject animatedly and sat down.

“There’s only one solution for this problem,” the fat, bald-headed little man, who had been introduced to him as Mr. Jarvis, was saying, “and that’s Americanization.”

“Americanization?” It was Pinkney’s father speaking, a heavy moustached man, with hawk-like features--Howard “took after” his mother. “Americanization? What they need is a good dose of tar and feathers. Yes, sir, good old tar and feathers. What do you think about it, Captain Hamilton?” He leaned forward in his chair.

“What is that?” asked Robert.

“Those damned foreigners,” the older Pinkney drawled. “The niggers are bad enough. But now these damned foreigners are getting too strong here.”

Mr. Pinkney was the sort of man who never referred to foreigners, save as “damned foreigners,” nor to women without adding “God bless ’em.”

“Do you know what some of those Jews are doing? Yes, sir, let me tell you! They’re bringing business up Telfair Avenue. When my father built there, yes, sir, it was the finest district in Corinth. He thought he’d leave it for his children and his children’s children. Never thought the town would grow to it. Now, sir, just take a drive past the place. I had to sell it three years ago. What are they doing? Putting up apartments, yes, sir, apartments.”

He looked fiercely at Hamilton as if to see whether Robert could possibly have any sympathy with a foreigner who put up apartment buildings.

“Five years ago that Jew real estate man, Abrams, came to me. Said it was inevitable that business must expand and that it would march up Telfair Avenue. Said he was negotiating for some leases there and advised me to convert my property into something that would pay. Pay, sir, pay! I told him that my father hadn’t built his house to pay, but to live in. Ha, Ha!”

Jarvis and Pinkney and the other gentlemen laughed.

“That’s a good one, all right,” said Jarvis.

“Yes, sir, live in. Well, he said that as the lower part of Telfair Avenue became a business section, the value of the upper part would fall because it would lose its exclusiveness. And he advised me to tear down the home or at least remodel it into an apartment building, and move out in Fairview. Said he was moving there himself.”

Pinkney looked about sharply and paused a moment to accentuate the effect of the denouement of the incident.

“What did I tell him? I said, ‘So you’re moving out to Fairview? Well, that’s every reason in the world why _I shouldn’t_! Just like that, sir. Shut him up, right off, like that.’”

“That’s the way to fix ’em!” said Jarvis, nodding his head.

“But wasn’t the real estate man right after all?” Hamilton asked timidly after the laughter had subsided. “Wasn’t it good advice?”

“Good advice? Why, if it weren’t for Abrams and his kind Telfair Avenue would still be an exclusive residence district. Yes, sir. Everybody else sold and moved out, but I stuck to my property until they built up all around it. When they tried to get my place I put up a stiff price. I didn’t want ’em to come there in the first place with their apartment houses and, if they wanted it bad enough I thought they could pay for it. But the shrewd rascals wouldn’t buy. They went ahead with their plans. Well, sir, when I moved I offered the land at their price, but they wouldn’t take it. No, sir, wouldn’t take it. We had some words, and I told Abrams what I thought of him and the Jerusalem he was bringing to Corinth.”

The older Pinkney went into a detailed and often vituperative account of his real estate dealings, the upshot of which was that the “damned Jew” wouldn’t buy, the Pinkney property was sold piecemeal to other dealers for a song, sold in turn to some other “damned Jew” and a large apartment building erected.

Someone else capped the story with an account of how a Jewish merchant was enlarging his department store, the few original merchants whose fathers or grandfathers had founded their businesses having been slowly forced out of business by competition.

“You’ve been away so long, young sir,” said Mr. Pinkney, “that you don’t realise what’s been happening here. But we’ve got something to remedy that. Yes, sir, remedy it. It’s the good old remedy of tar applied externally with a lot of feathers. It cured the carpetbaggers after the War and it’ll cure the niggers and foreigners now. Maybe Howard has told you something about it. My son has been up against un-Americanism here while you were fighting the enemy over in France. And he’s one of the leaders in reviving the Trick Track Tribe.”

Mr. Forsythe, Margaret’s father, a gray, small man of uncertain gestures and opinions, darted him a swift look. He had greeted Hamilton previously with a subdued warmth, which had puzzled his prospective son-in-law.

“Is it?” he was going to say ‘safe,’ thought better of it, “that is, does he know?”

“Oh, yes, he’ll be one of us. We’re all Trick Tracks here, aren’t we? Jarvis has given Robert an application card. Ordinarily we wouldn’t use the name, but Robert’s all right. Yes, sir. We all know where he stands.”

Reassured, Mr. Forsythe spoke about Mill Town, a suburb which had sprung up during the war for the housing of workers in Corinth factories.

“You don’t appreciate this, young man,” he began. “When our supply of labor ran low meeting war orders, we tried an experiment, brought a few foreign laborers from Baltimore through an agency. Now we’re sorry we did it. We paid them high wages and they settled down with their families. There’s quite a colony of them now. They’re a vicious lot. They wouldn’t stand for a cut of wages after the armistice, because, they said, prices hadn’t come down yet. And they actually had the audacity to insist on our continuing to recognise the union.”

“It’s the same all over. All over. Yes, sir,” Mr. Pinkney cut in. “But we’ll crush the unions. They’ve no place in a free government. They’re un-American.”

“Un-American” was one of the most frequent words in Mr. Pinkney’s vocabulary and it took the place of argument. It was enough to call a thing un-American to condemn it immediately. Thus he never said that labor unions are a bad thing because they interfere with freedom of contract, or because they tend to form a monopoly of labor under the control of a few men, or because they engender class consciousness. He never raised arguments, even bad arguments, against them! They were simply un-American.

Socialism was not even discussable, because it “bore the stamp ‘Made in Germany,’” and was moreover the theory of a Jew. It was so un-American that its mere mention caused him to turn purple with rage. And having decided that Socialism was un-American, there was a whole category of other institutions that were tabooed as Socialistic. He had viewed with alarm the control by the government of the railroads during the war, “because it was Socialistic.” He never argued that it expedited or delayed the transportation of men and materials to the sea-board. He never argued that it raised or lowered freight rates. He never argued that it increased or lowered the morale of the workers. He never argued that it aided or hindered the financial condition of the roads. Not he. No, sir. With a single word he knocked down the fallacy of all government ownership. It was socialistic.

Foreign language papers were _per se_ un-American and the use of a foreign language an open insult. No matter whether the offender had been imported into this country only a few years before, had been working too hard in the steel or textile mills to learn English and was gaining his conceptions of Americanism through the foreign papers and in a foreign tongue, or whether he had lived in this country thirty years. It was un-American.

Un-American, Hamilton perceived, as Mr. Pinkney rattled on, were the meetings of labor unions and the speeches made there. Mr. Pinkney had _not_ attended them, the idea, sir, and he had no intention of doing so, but he knew that no good could come of them. Drinking in a saloon as the foreigners did and drinking beer with their meals were un-American, although partaking of beverages in one’s club or drawing room was proper. The graduated income tax with its damnable surtaxes was confiscatory, Socialistic and un-American. The tariff, except on cotton, certain kinds of lumber and a few articles in which he was interested, was un-American. Even the Republican party was a party of nigger-lovers and foreigners, an un-American institution, foisted on the nation by the North and to which no gentleman of standing belonged.

Mr. Pinkney’s tirade amused Hamilton. It was what he had heard in his father’s drawing room and at his club before the war, only stronger than ever. The war had liberalized his own ideas, but evidently it had increased the conservatism of those who had remained at home. He had accepted the Germans for the time being as a foe, but as a worthy foe and one to be treated according to ideas of chivalry traditional with white civilization. Here they held an exaggerated hatred for things not only German, but even foreign. Hamilton recalled with a smile Levin’s description of the hundred per centers who remained at home and refused to eat German fried potatoes.

In Paris, too, he had heard Socialism discussed on every hand. He was not a Socialist. The persons who discussed it were divided in their opinions. Some were bitter opponents. Others were ardent supporters. Still others believed in a modified Socialistic program. It was the same way with other ideas--with Bolshevism, with the League of Nations, with post-impressionism, with _vers libre_. Men and women discussed these subjects animatedly on both, sides; but he had never heard anyone condemn an institution or an idea simply because it was un-French or condemn the discussion of it.

Of course, Paris had its Bourbons, but even they did not seem quite so intolerant.