human
Discipline is one thing. Bullying's another. I've never been satisfied discipline couldn't be enforced without snobbery. To-day Solesby--one year out of West Point!--walked through a shop I was in. He passed men working at their machines--skilled mechanics, many of them men of intelligence, ideas, character--as though he were passing so much cattle. I wanted to take him by the neck and throw him out!
gpt
Oh well, protested Katie,
human
Well, Leonard never learned it. His back gets some black looks, let me tell you.
gpt
Wayne dear, she laughed,
human
I'm afraid you're not talking like an officer and a gentleman.
gpt
I get tired talking like an officer and a gentleman. Sometimes I feel like talking like a man.
human
But couldn't you be court-martialed for doing that?
gpt
I think Leonard thinks I should be.
human
Why--why, Wayne?
gpt
Because I talk to the men. There's a young mechanic who has been detailed to me, and he and I get on famously. All too famously, I take it Leonard thinks. He came in to-day when this young Ferguson was telling me some things about his union. He treated Ferguson like a dog and me like a suspicious character.
human
Dear me, Wayne, she murmured,
gpt
Trouble! he scoffed.
human
Well if I can get in trouble for talking with an intelligent man I'm working with about the things that man knows--then let me get in trouble! I'd rather talk to Ferguson than Solesby--we've more in common. Oh I'll get in no trouble, he added grimly.
gpt
Leonard knows it wouldn't sound well to say it. But he feels it, just the same. Right there's the difference between our service and this forest service. That's where they're democrats and we're fossils. Look at the difference in the spirit of the ranger and the spirit of the soldier! And it's not because they're whipped into line and bullied and snarled at. It's because they're treated like men--and made to feel they're a needed part of a big whole. You should hear Fred tell of the way men meet in this forest service--superintendent meeting ranger on a common ground. And why? Because they're doing something constructive. Because the work's the thing that counts. You'll see what it's done for Fred. The boy has a real dignity; not the stiff-necked kind he'd acquire around an army post, but the dignity that comes with the consciousness of being, not in the service, but of service.