Unnamed Europeans

Lying on his cot in one of the few remaining pieces of American wilderness, Ike thinks about "the frantic old-world peoples" who buy the cotton that is grown on the Delta, and use it for "shells to shoot at one another" (337). Although at the time of the story the U.S. had not entered the war that became known as World War II , major fighting was underway between the Allies and the Axis armies.