FullReads

“But Willie already had the gate open. He walked up the brick walk to the steps, and I went with him. Myra was sitting in a rocking-chair on the porch, sewing. Her hair was smoothed back kind of hasty and tied in a knot. I never noticed till then that she had freckles. Joe was at one side of the porch, in his shirtsleeves, with no collar on, and no signs of a shave, trying to scrape out a hole among the brickbats and tin cans to plant a little fruit-tree in. He looked up but never said a word, and neither did Myra.

“Willie was sure dandy-looking in his uniform, with medals strung on his breast and his new gold-handled sword. You’d never have taken him for the little white-headed snipe that the girls used to order about and make fun of. He just stood there for a minute, looking at Myra with a peculiar little smile on his face; and then he says to her, slow, and kind of holding on to his words with his teeth:

“‘Oh, I don’t know! Maybe I could if I tried!’

“That was all that was said. Willie raised his hat, and we walked away.

“And, somehow, when he said that, I remembered, all of a sudden, the night of that dance and Willie brushing his hair before the looking- glass, and Myra sticking her head in the door to guy him.

“When we got back to Sam Houston Avenue, Willie says:

“‘Well, so long, Ben. I’m going down home and get off my shoes and take a rest.’

“‘You?’ says I. ‘What’s the matter with you? Ain’t the court-house jammed with everybody in town waiting to honor the hero? And two brass-bands, and recitations and flags and jags and grub to follow waiting for you?’

“Willie sighs.

“‘All right, Ben,’ says he. ‘Darned if I didn’t forget all about that.’

“And that’s why I say,” concluded Ben Granger, “that you can’t tell where ambition begins any more than you can where it is going to wind up.”