In fact, I suspected that sheddin' the enemy's gore wasn't much in my line. I knew I should dislike quittin' the hay at dawn to sneak out and get mixed up with half a bushel of impetuous scrap-iron. Still, if it had to be done, why not me as well as the next party?
I'd been meanin' to talk it over with Vee--sort of hint around, anyway, and see how she'd take it. But as a matter of fact I never could seem to find just the right openin' until, there one night after dinner, as she finishes a new piece she's tryin' over on the piano, I wanders up beside her and starts absent-minded tearin' little bits off a corner of the music.
"Torchy!" she protests. "What an absurd thing to do."
"Eh?" says I, twistin' it into a cornucopia. "But you know I can't go on warmin' the bench like this."
The flickery look in them gray eyes of hers steadies down, and she reaches out for one of my hands. That's all. No jumpy emotions--not even a lip quiver.
"I can't take it out in wearin' a button or hirin' someone to hoe potatoes in the back lot," says I.
"And with Leon here," I goes on, "and Mrs. Battou, you could----"
"Yes, I could get along," she breaks in. "But--but when?"
"Right away," says I. "As soon as they can use me."
"You'll start training for a commission, then?" she asks.
"Not me," says I. "I'd be poor enough as a private, but maybe I'd help fill in one of the back rows. I don't know much about it. I'll look it up to-morrow."
"To-morrow? Oh!" says Vee, with just the suspicion of a break in her voice.
And that's all we had to say about it. Every word. You'd thought we'd exhausted the subject, or got the tongue cramp. But I expect we each had a lot of thoughts that didn't get registered. I know I did. And next mornin' the breakaway came sort of hard.
"I--I know just how you feel about it," says Vee.
Puttin' the proposition up to Old Hickory was different. He shoots a quick glance at me from under them shaggy eyebrows, bites into his cigar savage, and grunts discontented.
"I know," says I. "If tags came with marriage licenses I might wear one on my watch-fob to show, I expect."
"Huh!" says he. "It seems to me that rapid-fire brain of yours might be better utilized than by hiding it under a trench helmet."