The Desert of Wheat by Zane Grey (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

myself. New York is an awful place—endless, narrow, torn-up streets crowded with hurrying throngs, taxicabs, cars, and full of noise and dust. I am always choked for air. And these streets reek. Where do the people come from and where are they going? They look wild, as if they had to go somewhere, but did not know where that was. I've no time or inclination to see New York, though under happier circumstances I think I'd like to.

People in the East seem strange to me. Still, as I never mingled with many people in the West, I cannot say truly whether Eastern people are different from Western people. But I think so. Anyway, while I was in Spokane, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles I did not think people were greatly concerned about the war. Denver people appeared not to realize there was a war. But here in New York everything is war. You can't escape it. You see that war will soon obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral and belligerent, pacifist and militarist. Since I wrote you last I've tried to read the newspapers sent to us. It's hard to tell you which makes me the sicker—the prattle of the pacifist or the mathematics of the military experts. Both miss the spirit of men. Neither has any soul. I think the German minds must all be mathematical.

But I want to write about the women and girls I see, here in New York, in the camps and towns, on the trains, everywhere. Lenore, the war has thrown them off their balance. I have seen and studied at close hand women of all classes. Believe me, as the boys say, I have thought more than twice whether or not I would tell you the stark truth. But somehow I am impelled to. I have an overwhelming conviction that all American girls and mothers should know what the truth is. They will never be told, Lenore, and most would never believe if they were told. And that is one thing wrong with people.

I believe every soldier, from the time he enlists until the war is ended, should be kept away from women. This is a sweeping statement and you must take into account the mind of him who makes it. But I am not leaping at conclusions. The soldier boys have terrible peril facing them long before they get to the trenches. Not all, or nearly all, the soldiers are going to be vitally affected by the rottenness of great cities or by the mushroom hotbeds of vice springing up near the camps. These evils exist and are being opposed by military and government, by police and Y.M.C.A., and good influence of good people. But they will never wholly stamp it out.

Nor do I want to say much about the society women who are "rushing" the officers. There may be one here and there with her heart in the right place, but with most of them it must be, first, this something about war that has unbalanced women; and secondly, a fad, a novelty, a new sentimental stunt, a fashion set by some leader. Likewise I want to say but little about the horde of common, street-chasing, rattled-brained women and girls who lie in wait for soldiers at every corner, so to speak. All these, to be sure, may be unconsciously actuated by motives that do not appear on the surface; and if this be true, their actions are less bold, less raw than they look.

What I want to dwell upon is my impression of something strange, unbalanced, incomprehensible, about the frank conduct of so many well-educated, refined, and good women I see; and about the eagerness, restlessness, the singular response of nice girls to situations that are not natural.

To-night a handsome, stylishly gowned woman of about thirty came up to me with a radiant smile and a strange brightness in her eyes. There were five hundred couples dancing on the floor, and the music and sound of sliding feet made it difficult to hear her. She said: "You handsome soldier boy! Come dance with me?" I replied politely that I did not dance. Then she took hold of me and said, "I'll teach you." I saw a wedding-ring on the hand she laid on my arm. Then I looked straight at her, "Madam, very soon I'll be learning the dance of death over in France, and my mind's concerned with that." She grew red with anger. She seemed amazed. And she snapped, "Well, you are a queer soldier!" Later I watched her flirting and dancing with an officer.

Overtures and advances innumerable have been made to me, ranging from the assured possession-taking onslaught like this woman's to the slight, subtle something, felt more than seen, of a more complex nature. And, Lenore, I blush to tell you this, but I've been mobbed by girls. They have a thousand ways of letting a soldier know! I could not begin to tell them. But I do not actually realize what it is that is conveyed, that I know; and I am positive the very large majority of soldiers misunderstand. At night I listen to the talks of my comrades, and, well—if the girls only heard! Many times I go out of hearing, and when I cannot do that I refuse to hear.

Lenore, I am talking about nice girls now. I am merciless. There are many girls like you—they seem like you, though none so pretty. I mean, you know, there are certain manners and distinctions that at once mark a really nice girl. For a month I've been thrown here and there, so that it seems I've seen as many girls as soldiers. I have been sent to different entertainments given for soldiers. At one place a woman got up and invited the girls to ask the boys to dance. At another a crowd of girls were lined up wearing different ribbons, and the boys marched along until each one found the girl wearing a ribbon to match the one he wore. That was his partner. It was interesting to see the eager, mischievous, brooding eyes of these girls as they watched and waited. Just as interesting was it to see this boy's face when he found his partner was ugly, and that boy swell with pride when he found he had picked a "winner." It was all adventure for both boys and girls. But I saw more than that in it. Whenever I could not avoid meeting a girl I tried to be agreeable and to talk about war, and soldiers, and what was going on. I did not dance, of course, and I imagine more than one girl found me a "queer soldier."

It always has touched me, though, to see and feel the sweetness, graciousness, sympathy, kindness, and that other indefinable something, in the girls I have met. How they made me think of you, Lenore! No