WORLD'S END

On their way home the two boys prattled gaily about the wonders they had seen. They were Budds, and made machine guns, and in their fancy used them freely. They had learned to make sounds in imitation of the weapon's chatter, and as the car rolled along they discovered solid ranks of Germans charging out of some farmer's woodlot, and mowed them down without the slightest qualm. They wanted to know all about the men they had seen being entrained from the cantonment; what embarkation camp they were taken to, and what kind of transports they boarded, the time it took to get to France, the chances of a submarine sinking them.

Their father didn't worry about them, because they were too young to get into this mess. But he wanted to be sure that Lanny hadn't been seduced by all the glamour. Making war is an ancient practice of mankind, and it is always impressive to see a job done with vigor and speed. So Robbie waited for something to come out of his eldest's thoughtful mood; and when it did, he got a pleasant surprise.

Said Lanny: "Do you suppose that when school's over you could find me some job in the plant for the summer?"

"What sort of a job, son?"

"Anything where I could be useful, and learn something about the business."

"You really think that would interest you?"

"Well, everybody's doing something, and a fellow doesn't feel comfortable just to be playing round."

"If you make a good record at school, Lanny, nobody's going to question your right to a summer vacation."

"If they knew how little real work I have to do, they might. And if you're going to tell a draft board that I'm needed to make munitions, hadn't I better know something about it?"

"It'll be two years and a half before you have to consider that problem."

"I read that they're thinking of lowering the draft age. So if you don't want me in, you'd better get busy and fix up an alibi."

"We'll think about it," replied the father; and added, with a smile: "It would make something of a hit with the president of Budd's!"

23

Midsummer-Night Dream

I

EXAMINATIONS came at St. Thomas's, and Lariny passed with good grades, and checked off his list several subjects about which he would never have to think again.

He had now spent fourteen months in Connecticut; and during that period more than a million Americans had been ferried across to France. Jerry Pendleton and fifty thousand other sergeants were ready to try out the idea that German machine-gun nests could be wiped out by baseball players throwing Budd hand grenades. During the fourteen months' period the plants had been working day and night without let-up. Smoke billowed from their chimneys, the workers toiled like swarms of ants, and the products were piled by the million in warehouses in France and behind the fighting front. The doughboys had had a sort of tryout at the battle of Cantigny, and now were being moved into position to stop the German advance on Paris.

Such was the news in the papers when Lanny sat down to discuss with his father the problem of how to spend the summer. He still wanted to go into the plant; and when Robbie asked his ideas, he said: "Why shouldn't I take a job like anybody else, and see how it feels to put in an eight-hour day?"

"Beginning at the bottom of the ladder?" smiled the father.

"Isn't that the accepted way?"

"Accepted by the fiction editors. You'd be set down in one corner of one room, and learn six motions of your hands, and do them say eight hundred times a day for three months. You would learn that it is very fatiguing."

"I thought I might learn something about the people I was working with."

"You'd learn that nine out of ten of them don't know anything but their six motions, and don't care about those. You'd learn that they are making a lot of money, and don't know what to do with it except to buy fancy shirts and socks and a second-hand car. You can learn all that by going down on Center Street any evening."

This was discouraging. "I didn't like to suggest going into the office, Robbie, because I don't know anything, and I saw that everybody was so busy."

"Both those things are true. But, first, tell me what's in your mind. Do you want to become a Budd executive, and live out by the country club? Or would you rather learn my business in Europe? In other words, do you want to make munitions or sell them?"

"I thought I ought to know both jobs, Robbie."

"You have to know something about both if you're going to know either; but they are highly specialized, and you have to concentrate. It's like choosing your major and minor subjects when you go to college."

"Well, you're asking if I want to be with you, or with Uncle Lawford. You know what I'll say to that."

"Then why not start in my office, and see everything in the plant from there, as I do?"

"Can you make sure I won't get in the way?"

"I'll make mighty darn sure of it," said the father. "If you get in my way, I'll tell you, and if you get in other people's way, they'll tell you."

"That's fair enough."