Carter had not been able to keep pace with the boy’s physical growth. It still seemed to him but a brief time ago that he had been carrying him round in his arms as a baby. And he had carried him for miles. He had not been able to keep his hands off him. He had loved to feel the downy head against his cheek and the frightened little heart pounding against his own. Night after night he had walked the floor with him with a sense of creation akin to God’s. And when anything was really the matter with the child Carter became a trembling wreck.
Well, those days were something to look back upon now with a smile. They even played their part in the present. They afforded the contrast necessary to allow him to extract to the last drop his final triumphant success. Some of those who had never taken the seven-fifteen did not know what it meant to take the eight-ten.
Carter, who had previously been content with one paper, now bought the _Times_ and the _Sun_ at the station and glanced through the headlines. He had read with a thrill of pride, as did everyone in the whole car on that early spring morning, the President’s declaration of war.
He was sitting beside Culver, of the Second National Bank, and exclaimed: “Guess that’ll make Wilhelm sit up and take notice, eh?”
Culver was an older man. Carter could have punched him for his response in a level voice: “Yes. But ’tis going to make us sit up and take notice, too.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Carter with a trace of aggressiveness.
“I mean that our resources are going to be tested to the limit before we’re through with this.”
“You wait until the Huns see Uncle Sam with his sleeves rolled up. Wouldn’t surprise me any if they quit.”
Carter shifted his seat to a place near Barclay and Newell, who were leading a group in three cheers for the President. And on his way downtown that day he stopped to buy a flag and pole to be sent to the house. Before he reached his office these flags of red and white and blue had begun to appear in numbers on the tops of buildings and from windows, brightening the dull gray backgrounds as with flowers. It made him want to cheer. It made him walk more erect. The whole downtown atmosphere became vibrant. The declaration of war was the sole topic of conversation in the office, and one of the first things he did was to ring up Kitty and tell her about it.