been tricked into it by Wall Street
or something. I read it in his magazine. They're working against the war
night and day, he says. Well, all I mean, I'd hate to go over there and
be seasick and everything and then find they had stopped it."

Intently, grimly, Sharon climbed from his car. His short, fat leg went
back and he accurately kicked an empty sprinkling can across the floor.
It was a satisfying object to kick; it made a good noise and came to a
clattering rest on its dented side. It was so satisfying that with
another kick he sent the can bounding through an open door.

"Gave it the second barrel, didn't you?" said Wilbur. Sharon grinned
now.

"Just a letter to your brother," he explained. Then he became profanely
impassioned. "Fudge! Fudge and double fudge! Scissors and white aprons!
Prunes and apricots! No! That war won't be stopped by any magazine! Go
on--fight your fool head off! Don't let any magazine keep you back!"

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

"They can't stop the war, because there are too many boys like you all
over this land. Trick or no trick, that's what they're up against.
You'll all fight--while they're writing their magazines. Your reactions
are different. That's a word I got from the dirty thing--and from that
brother of yours. He gets a lot of use out of that word--always talking
about his reactions. Just yesterday I said to him: 'Take care of your
actions and your reactions will take care of themselves.' He don't
cotton to me. I guess I never buttered him up with praise any too much.
His languageousness gets on me. He's got Gideon and Harvey D. on a hot
griddle, too, though they ain't lettin' on. Here the Whipples have
always gone to war for their country--Revolutionary War and 1812,
Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American--Harvey D. was in that. Didn't
do much fighting, but he was belligerent enough. And now this son of his
sets back and talks about his reactions! What I say--he's a Whipple in
name only."

"He's educated," protested Wilbur, quick to defend this brother, even
should he cheat him out of the good plain fighting he meant to do.

"Educated!" Sharon imitated a porpoise without knowing it. "Educated out
of books! All any of that rabble rout of his knows is what they read
secondhand. They don't know people. Don't know capitalists. Don't even
know these wage slaves they write about. That's why they can't stop the
war. They may be educated, but you're enlightened. They know more