was talking to me in this way one drowsy August afternoon. We had
been fishing down on the river, and now on our way home up the long hot
slope of the meadow we had stopped to cool ourselves in the shadow of a
haystack. It was fragrant there. Presently, from the top of the stack
close over our heads, a bird poured forth a ravishing song. And Eleanore
with a deep "Oh-h" of delight threw both her hands behind her head, sank
back in the hay and lay there close beside me. Her eyes were shut and
she was smiling to herself. Then as the song of the bird bubbled on, I
felt suddenly a little shock, a new disturbing feeling. Breathlessly I
watched her face. The song stopped and Eleanore opened her eyes, met
mine, and closed them quickly. I saw a slight tightening of her
features. I grew anxious at once and awkward. I wanted to get away.

But as I made a first uneasy movement, a bit of bright color caught my
eye. It was one of her red garters which had slipped down from beneath
her skirt. And all at once out of my memory rose a picture of years ago,
a picture from the harbor, of that fat drunken girl I had seen. She too
had worn red garters--in fact, little else! With disgusting vividness up
she came! And I jumped trembling to my feet.

"I'm going home," I said roughly, and left my small companion.

I kept away from her after that. And even the following winter, when
she came over often to our house to spend the night with Sue, I did my
best to avoid her. I avoided all Sue's friends. I did not keep girls
quite out of my thoughts, I had spells now and then when I would read
about them in novels, papers and magazines, anything I could lay hands
on. I would read hungrily, at times almost wistfully. But all the
stories that I read, however romantic, could never quite overbalance for
me that giggling woman I had seen.

"This is what love can be these days, foul as two pigs in a sty," said
the harbor.

The same thing happened again with war and the great idea of giving
one's life for one's country.

By countless eager questionings I had forced my mother to include among
our heroes men like Napoleon, Nelson and Grant, and after I gave up
hopes of the church these men for a time became greatest of all. You
needed no mother to help you here. It was the easiest thing in the world
to picture yourself leading charges or standing high up on a hill like
Grant, quietly smoking a black cigar and sending your orderlies on the
mad gallop out