earth. In that you run for Arlington, if they return the body. The family has a choice.”
“Is Arlington nice?”
“I don’t know,” the Colonel said. “I was never buried there.”
“Where would you like to be buried?”
“Up in the hills,” he said, making a quick decision. “On any part of the high ground where we beat them.”
“I suppose you should be buried on the Grappa.”
“On the dead angle of any shell-pocked slope if they would graze cattle over me in the summer time.”
“Do they have cattle there?”
“Sure. They always have cattle where there is good grass in the summer, and the girls of the highest houses, the strong built ones, the houses and the girls, that resist the snow in winter, trap foxes in the fall after they bring the cattle down. They feed from pole-stacked hay.”
“And you don’t want Arlington or Père Lachaise or what we have here?”
“Your miserable boneyard.”
“I know it is the most unworthy thing about the town. The city rather. I learned to call cities towns from you. But I will see that you go where you wish to go and I will go with you if you like.”
“I would not like. That is the one thing we do alone. Like going to the bathroom.”
“Please do not be rough.”
“I meant that I would love to have you with me. But it is very egotistical and an ugly process.”
