U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [61]
"But, Joe . . ."
"I'l write you, Janey; honest, I wil . . . I'l write you a hel of a lot. You an' me . . . Wel , goodby, Janey." He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her awkwardly on the nose and cheek. Al she could do was whisper. "Do be careful, Joe," and stand there in front of the bureau in the gust of lilacs and the yel ing of the kids that came through the open window. She heard Joe's steps light quick down the stairs and heard the frontdoor shut. She turned out the light, took off her clothes in the dark, and got into bed. She lay there without crying. Graduation came and commencement and she and Alice
went out to parties and even once with a big crowd on one of the moonlight trips down the river to Indian Head on the steamboat Charles McAlister. The crowd was rougher than Janey and Alice liked. Some of the boys were drink-ing a good deal and there were couples kissing and hug-ging in every shadow; stil the moonlight was beautiful rippling on the river and she and Janey put two chairs together and talked. There was a band and dancing, but they didn't dance on account of the rough men who stood round the dancefloor making remarks. They talked and on the way home up the river, Janey, talking very low and standing by the rail very close to Alice, told her about Alec. Alice had read about it in the paper but hadn't dreamed that Janey had known him so wel or felt that way about him. She began to cry and Janey felt very
-146-strong comforting her and they felt that they'd be very close friends after that. Janey whispered that she'd never be able to love anybody else and Alice said she didn't think she could ever love a man anyway, they al drank and smoked and talked dirty among themselves and had only one idea.
In July Alice and Janey got jobs in the office of Mrs. Robinson, public stenographer in the Riggs Building, to replace girls away on their vacations. Mrs. Robinson was a smal grayhaired pigeonbreasted woman with a Ken-tucky shriek in her voice, that made Janey think of a parrot's. She was very precise and al the proprieties were observed in her office. "Miss Wil iams," she would chirp, leaning back from her desk, "that em ess of Judge Rob-erts's has absolutely got to be finished today . . . My dear, we've given our word and we'l deliver if we have to stay til midnight. Noblesse oblige, my dear," and the typewriters would tril and jingle and al the girls' fingers would go like mad typing briefs, manuscripts of unde-livered speeches by lobbyists, occasional overflow from a newspaperman or a scientist, or prospectuses from real-estate offices or patent promoters, dunning letters for dentists and doctors.
THE CAMERA EYE (14)
Sunday nights when we had fishbal s and baked beans and Mr. Garfield read to us in a very beautiful reading voice and everybody was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop because he was reading The Man Without a Country and it was a very terrible story and Aaron Burr
-147-had been a very dangerous man and this poor young man had said "Damn the United States; I never hope to hear her name again" and it was a very terrible thing to say and the grayhaired judge was so kind and good
and the judge sentenced me and they took me far
away to foreign lands on a frigate and the officers were kind and good and spoke in kind grave very sorry read-ing voices like Mr. Garfield and everything was very kind and grave and very sorry and frigates and the blue Mediterranean and islands and when I was dead I began to cry and I was afraid the other boys would see I had tears in my eyes American shouldn't cry he should look kind and
grave and very sorry when they wrapped me in the stars and stripes and brought me home on a frigate to be buried I was so sorry I never remembered whether they brought me home or buried me at sea but anyway I was wrapped in Old Glory
NEWSREEL XI
the government of the United States must insist and demand that American citizens who may be taken prisoner whether by one party or the other as participants in the present insurrectionary