"I am ready, Mummy. I'd die this minute for—for America. Wouldn't you, Hughie?"

And young Hugh, a slim, blond angel of a boy, of curly, golden hair and unexpected answers, had ducked beneath the hero, upsetting him into a hedge to his infinite anger. "I wouldn't die right now, Brocky," said Hugh. "There's going to be chocolate cake for lunch."

One could never count on Hugh's ways of doing things, but Brock was a stone wall of reliability. She smiled, thinking of his youth and beauty and entire boyishness, to think yet of the saying from the Bible which always suggested Brock, "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." It was so with the lad; through the gay heart and eager interest in life pulsed an atmosphere of deep religiousness. He was always "in perfect peace," and his mother, less balanced, had stayed her mind on that quiet and right young mind from its very babyhood. The lad had seen his responsibilities and lifted them all his life. It came to her how, when her own mother, very dear to Brock, had died, she had not let the lads go with her to the house of death for fear of saddening their youth, and how, when she and their father came home from the hard, terrible business of the funeral, they met little Hugh on the drive, rapturous at seeing them again, rather absorbed in his new dog. But Brock, then fourteen, was in the house alone, quiet, his fresh, dear face red with tears, and a black necktie of his father's, too large for him, tied under his collar. Of all the memories of her boys, that grotesque black tie was the most poignant and most precious. It said much. It said: "I also, O, my mother, am of my people. I have a right to their sorrows as well as to their joys, and if you do not give me my place in trouble, I shall do what I can alone, being but a boy. I shall give up play, and I shall wear mourning as I can, not knowing how very well, but pushed by all my being to be with my own in their mourning."

Quickly affection for the other lad asserted itself. Brock and Hugh were different, but Hugh was a dear boy, too—undeveloped, that was all. He had never taken life seriously, little Hugh, and now that this war-cloud hung over the world, he simply refused to look at it; he turned away his face. That was all, a temperament which loved harmony and shrank from ugliness; these things were young Hugh's limitations, and no ignoble quality.

In a long dream, yet much faster than the words have told it, in comprehensive flashes of memory, her elbows on her knees and her face, in her slender hands, looking out over the garden with its arched way of roses, with its high hedge, looking past the loveliness that was home to the city pulsing in summer heat, to the shining zigzag of river beyond the city, the woman reviewed her boys' lives. Boys were not now merely one phase of humanity; they had suddenly become the nation. They stood in the foreground of a world crisis; back of them America was ranged, orderly, living and moving to feed, clothe, and keep happy these millions of lads holding in their hands the fate of the earth. Her boys were but two, yet necessary. She owed them to the country, as other mothers of men.

There was a whistle under the archway, a flying step, and young Hugh shot from beneath the rosiness of Dorothy Perkins vines and took the stone steps in four bounds. All the dogs fell into a community chorus of barks and whines and patterings about, and Hugh's hands were on this one and that as he bent over the woman.

"A good kiss, Mummy; that's cold baked potato," he complained, and she laughed and hugged him.

"Not cold; I was just thinking. Your knee, Hughie? You came up like a bird."

Hugh made a face. "Bad break, that," he grinned, and limped across the terrace and back. "Mummy, it doesn't hurt much now, and I do forget," he explained, and his color deepened. With that: "Tom Arthur is waiting for me in town. We're going to pick up Whitney, the tennis champion, at the Crossroads Club. May I take Dad's roadster?"

"Yes, Hughie. And, Hugh, meet the train, the seven-five. Dad's coming to-night, you know."

The boy took her hand, looked at her uneasily. "Mummy, dear, don't be thinking sinful thoughts about me. And don't let Dad. Hold your fire, Mummy."

She lifted her face, and her eyes were the eyes of faith he had known all his life. "You blessed boy of mine, I will hold my fire." And then Hugh had all but knocked her over with a violent kiss again, and he slammed happily through the screen doors and was leaping up the stairs. Ten minutes later she heard the car purring down the drive.

The dogs settled about her with long dog-sighs again. She looked at her wrist—only five-thirty. She went back with a new unrest to her thoughts. Hugh's knee—it was odd; it had lasted a long time, ever since—she shuddered a bit, so that old Mavourneen lifted her head and objected softly—ever since war was declared. Over a year! To be sure, he had hurt it again badly, slipping on the ice in December, just as it was getting strong. She wished that his father would not be so grim when Hugh's bad knee was mentioned. What did he mean? Did he dare to think her boy—the word was difficult even mentally—a slacker? With that her mind raced back to the days just before Hugh had hurt this knee. It was in February that Germany had proclaimed the oceans closed except along German paths, at German times. "This is war at last," her husband had said, and she knew the inevitable had come.

Night after night she had lain awake facing it, sometimes breaking down utterly and shaking her soul out in sobs, sometimes trying to see ways around the horror, trying to believe that war must end before our troops could get ready, often with higher courage glorying that she might give so much for country and humanity. Then, in the nights, things that she had read far back, unrealizing, rose and confronted her with awful reality. Brutalities, atrocities, wounds, barbarous captivity—nightmares which the Germans had dug out of the grave of savagery and sent stalking over the earth—such rose and stood before the woman lying awake night after night. At first her soul hid its face in terror at the gruesome thoughts; at first her mind turned and fled and refused to believe. Her boys, Brock and Hugh! It was not credible, it was not reasonable, it was out of drawing that her good boys, her precious boys trained to be happy and help the world, to live useful, peaceful lives, should be snatched from home, here in America, and pitched into the ghastly struggle of Europe. Push back the ocean as she might, the ocean surged every day nearer.

Daytimes she was as brave as the best. She could say: "If we had done it the day after the Lusitania, that would have been right. It would have been all over now." She could say: "My boys? They will do their duty like other women's boys." But nights, when she crept into bed and the things she had read of Belgium, of Serbia, came and stood about her, she knew that hers were the only boys in the world who could not, could not be spared. Brock and Hugh! It seemed as if it would be apparent to the dullest that Brock and Hugh were different from all others. She could suffer; she could have gone over there light-hearted and faced any danger to save them. Of course! That was natural! But—Brock and Hugh! The little heads that had lain in the hollow of her arm; the noisy little boys who had muddied their white clothes, and broken furniture, and spilled ink; the tall, beautiful lads who had been her pride and her everlasting joy, her playmates, her lovers—Brock and Hugh! Why, there had never been on earth love and friendship in any family close and unfailing like that of the four.

Night after night, nearer and nearer, the ghosts from Belgium and Serbia and Poland stood about her bed, and she fought with them as one had fought with the beasts at Ephesus. Day after day she cheered Brock and the two Hughs and filled them with fresh patriotism. Of course, she would not have her own fail in a hair's breadth of eager service to their flag. Of course! And as she lifted up, for their sakes, her heart, behold a miracle, for her heart grew high! She began to feel the words she said. It came to her in very truth that to have the world as one wanted it was not now the point; the point was a greater goal which she had never in her happy life even visualized. It began to rise before her, a distant picture glorious through a mist of suffering, something built of the sacrifice, and the honor, and the deathless bravery of millions of soldiers in battle, of millions of mothers at home. The education of a nation to higher ideals was reaching the quiet backwater of this one woman's soul. There were lovelier things than life; there were harder things than death. Service is the measure of living. If the boys were to compress years of good living into a flame of serving humanity for six months, who was she, what was life here, that she should be reluctant? To play the game, for herself and her sons, this was the one thing worth while. More and more entirely, as the stress of the strange, hard vision crowded out selfishness, this woman, as thousands and tens of thousands all over America, lifted up her heart—the dear things that filled and were her heart—unto the Lord.

And with that she was aware of a recurring unrest. She was aware that there was something her husband did not say to her about the boys, about young Hugh. Brock had been hard to hold for nearly two years now, but his father had thought for reasons, that he should not serve until his own flag called him. Now it would soon be calling, and Brock would go instantly. But young Hugh? What did the boy's attitude mean?

"I can't make out Hughie," his father had said to her in March, 1917, when it was certain that war was coming. "What does this devil-may-care pose about the war mean?"

And she answered: "Let Hughie work it out, Hugh. He's in trouble in his mind, but he'll come through. We'll give him time."

"Oh, very well," Hugh the elder had agreed, "but young Americans will have to take their stand shortly. I couldn't bear it if a son of mine were a slacker."

She tossed out her hands. "Slacker! Don't dare say it of my boy!"

The hideous word followed her. That night, when she lay in bed and looked out into the moonlit wood, and saw the pines swaying like giant fans across a pulsing, pale sky, and listened to the summer wind blowing through the tall heads of them, again through the peace of it the word stabbed. A slacker! She set to work to fancy how it would be if Brock and Hugh both went to war and were both killed. She faced the thought. Life—years of it—without Brock and Hugh! She registered that steadily in her mind. Then she painted to herself another picture, Brock and Hugh not going to war, at home ignominiously safe. Other women's sons marching out into the danger—men, heroes! Brock and Hugh explaining, steadily explaining why they had not gone! Brock and Hugh after the war, mature men, meeting returning soldiers, old friends who had borne the burden and heat, themselves with no memories of hideous, infinitely precious days, of hardships, and squalid trench life, and deadly pain—for America! Brock and Hugh going on through life into old age ashamed to hold up their heads and look their comrades in the eye! Or else—it might be—Brock and Hugh lying next year, this year, in unknown, honored graves in France! Which was worse? And the aching heart of the woman did not wait to answer. Better a thousand times brave death than a coward's life. She would choose so if she knew certainly that she sent them both to death. The education of the war, the new glory of patriotism, had already gone far in this one woman.

And then the thought stabbed again—a slacker—Hugh! How did his father dare say it? A poisonous terror, colder than the fear of death, crawled into her soul and hid there. Was it possible that Hugh, brilliant, buoyant, temperamental Hugh was—that? The days went on, and the cold, vile thing stayed coiled in her soul. It was on the very day war was declared that young Hugh injured his knee, a bad injury. When he was carried home, when the doctor cut away his clothes and bent over the swollen leg and said wise things about the "bursa," the boy's eyes were hard to meet. They constantly sought hers with a look questioning and anxious. Words were impossible, but she tried to make her glance and manner say: "I trust you. Not for worlds would I believe you did it on purpose."

And finally the lad caught her hand and with his mouth against it spoke. "You know I didn't do it on purpose, Mummy."

And the cold horror fled out of her heart, and a great relief flooded her.

On a day after that Brock came home from camp, and, though he might not tell it in words, she knew that he would sail shortly for France. She kept the house full of brightness and movement for the three days he had at home, yet the four—young Hugh on crutches now—clung to each other, and on the last afternoon she and Brock were alone for an hour. They had sat just here after tennis, in the hazy October weather, and pink-brown leaves had floated down with a thin, pungent fragrance and lay on the stone steps in vague patterns. Scarlet geraniums bloomed back of Brock's head and made a satisfying harmony with the copper of his tanned face. They fell to silence after much talking, and finally she got out something which had been in her mind but which it had been hard to say.

"Brocky," she began, and jabbed the end of her racket into her foot so that it hurt, because physical pain will distract and steady a mind. "Brocky, I want to ask you to do something."

"Yes'm," answered Brock.

"It's this. Of course, I know you're going soon, over there."

Brock looked at her gravely.

"Yes, I know, I want to ask you if—if it happens—will you come and tell me yourself? If it's allowed."

Brock did not even touch her hand; he knew well she could not bear it. He answered quietly, with a sweet, commonplace manner as if that other world to which he might be going was a place too familiar in his thoughts for any great strain in speaking of it. "Yes, Mummy," he said. "Of course I will. I'd have wanted to anyway, even if you hadn't said it. It seems to me—" He lifted his young face, square-jawed, fresh-colored, and there was a vision-seeing look in his eyes which his mother had known at times before. He looked across the city lying at their feet, and the river, and the blue hills beyond, and he spoke slowly, as if shaping a thought. "So many fellows have 'gone west' lately that there must he some way. It seems as if all that mass of love and—and desire to reach back and touch—the ones left—as if all that must have built a sort of bridge over the river—so that a fellow might probably come back and—and tell his mother—"

Brock's voice stopped, and suddenly she was in his arms, his face was against hers, and hot tears not her own were on her cheek. Then he was shaking his head as if to shake off the strong emotion.

"It's not likely to happen, dear. The casualties in this war are tremendously lower than in—"

"I know," she interrupted. "Of course, they are. Of course, you're coming home without a scratch, and likely a general, and conceited beyond words. How will we stand you!"

Brock laughed delightedly. "You're a peach," he stated. "That's the sort. Laughing mothers to send us off—it makes a whale of a difference."

That October afternoon had now dropped eight months back, and still the house seemed lost without Brock, especially on this June twentieth, the day that was his and hers, the day when there had always been "doings" second only to Christmas at Lindow. But she gathered up her courage like a woman. Hugh the elder was coming tonight from his dollar-a-year work in Washington, her man who had moved heaven and earth to get into active service, and who, when finally refused because of his forty-nine years and a defective eye, had left his great business as if it were a joke, and had put his whole time, and strength, and experience, and fortune at the service of the Government—as plenty of other American men were doing. Hugh was coming in time for her birthday dinner, and young Hugh was with them—Her heart shrank as if a sharp thing touched it. How would it be when they rose to drink Brock's health? She knew pretty well what her cousin, the judge, would say:

"The soldier in France! God bring him home well and glorious!"

How would it be for her other boy then, the boy who was not in France? Unphrased, a thought flashed, "I hope, I do hope Hughie will be very lame tonight."

The little dog slipped from her and barked in remonstrance as she threw out her hands and stood up. Old Mavourneen pulled herself to her feet, too, a huge, beautiful beast, and the woman stooped and put her arm lovingly about the furry neck. "Mavourneen, you know a lot. You know our Brock's away." At the name the big dog whined and looked up anxious, inquiring. "And you know—do you know, dear dog, that Hughie ought to go? Do you? Mavourneen, it's like the prayer-book says, 'The burden of it is intolerable.' I can't bear to lose him, and I can't, O God! I can't bear to keep him." She straightened. "As you say, Mavourneen, it's time to dress for dinner."

The birthday party went better than one could have hoped. Nobody broke down at Brock's name; everybody exulted in the splendid episode of his heroism, months back, which had won him the war cross. The letter from Jim Colledge and his own birthday letter, garrulous and gay, were read. Brock had known well that the day would be hard to get through and had made that letter out of brutal cheerfulness. Yet every one felt his longing to be at the celebration, missed for the first time in his life, pulsing through the words. Young Hugh read it and made it sweet with a lovely devotion to and pride in his brother. A heart of stone could not have resisted Hugh that night. And then the party was over, and the woman and her man, seeing each other seldom now, talked over things for an hour. After, through her open door, she saw a bar of light under the door of the den, Brock's and Hugh's den.

"Hughie," she spoke, and on the instant the dark panel flashed into light.

"Come in, Mummy, I've been waiting to talk to you."

"Waiting, my lamb?"

Hugh pushed her, as a boy shoves a sister, into the end of the sofa. There was a wood fire on the hearth in front of her, for the June evening was cool, and luxurious Hugh liked a fire. A reading lamp was lighted above Brock's deep chair, and there were papers on the floor by it, and more low lights. There were magazines about, and etchings on the walls, and bits of university plunder, and the glow of rugs and of books. It was as fascinating a place as there was in all the beautiful house. In the midst of the bright peace Hugh stood haggard.

"Hughie! What is it?"

"Mother," he whispered, "help me!"

"With my last drop of blood, Hugh."

"I can't go on—alone—mother." His eyes were wild, and his words labored into utterance. "I—I don't know what to do—mother."

"The war, Hughie?"

"Of course! What else is there?" he flung at her.

"But your knee?"

"Oh, Mummy, you know as well as I that my knee is well enough. Dad knows it, too. The way he looks at me—or dodges looking! Mummy—I've got to tell you—you'll have to know—and maybe you'll stop loving me. I'm—" He threw out his arms with a gesture of despair. "I'm—afraid to go." With that he was on his knees beside her, and his arms gripped her, and his head was hidden in her lap. For a long minute there was only silence, and the woman held the young head tight.

Hugh lifted his face and stared from blurred eyes. "A man might better be dead than a coward—you're thinking that? That's it." A sob stopped his voice, the young, dear voice. His face, drawn into lines of age, hurt her unbearably. She caught him against her and hid the beloved, impossible face.

"Hugh—I—judging you—I? Why, Hughie, I love you—I only love you. I don't stand off and think, when it's you and Brock. I'm inside your hearts, feeling it with you. I don't know if it's good or bad. It's—my own. Coward—Hughie! I don't think such things of my darling."

"'There's no—friend like a mother,'" stammered young Hugh, and tears fell unashamed. His mother had not seen the boy cry since he was ten years old. He went on. "Dad didn't say a word, because he wouldn't spoil your birthday, but the way he dodged—my knee—" He laughed miserably and swabbed away tears with the corner of his pajama coat. "I wish I had a hanky," he complained. The woman dried the tear-stained cheeks hastily with her own. "Dad's got it in for me," said Hugh. "I can tell. He'll make me go—now. He—he suspects I went skating that day hoping I'd fall—and—I know it wasn't so darned unlikely. Yes—I did—not the first time—when I smashed it; that was entirely—luck." He laughed again, a laugh that was a sob. "And now—oh, Mummy, have I got to go into that nightmare? I hate it so. I am—I am—afraid. If—if I should be there and—and sent into some terrible job—shell-fire—dirt—smells—dead men and horses—filth—torture—mother, I might run. I don't feel sure. I can't trust Hugh Langdon—he might run. Anyhow"—the lad sprang to his feet and stood before her—"anyhow—why am I bound to get into this? I didn't start it. My Government didn't. And I've everything, everything before me here. I didn't tell you, but that editor said—he said I'd be one of the great writers of the time. And I love it, I love that job. I can do it. I can be useful, and successful, and an honor to you—and happy, oh, so happy! If only I may do as Arnold said, be one of America's big writers! I've everything to gain here; I've everything to lose there." He stopped and stood before her like a flame.

And from the woman's mouth came words which she had not thought, as if other than herself spoke them. "'What shall it profit a man,'" she spoke, "'if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'"

At that the boy plunged on his knees in collapse and sobbed miserably. "Mother, mother! Don't be merciless."

"Merciless! My own laddie!" There seemed no words possible as she stroked the blond head with shaking hand. "Hughie," she spoke when his sobs quieted. "Hughie, it's not how you feel; it's what you do. I believe thousands and thousands of boys in this unwarlike country have gone—are going—through suffering like yours."

Hugh lifted wet eyes. "Do you think so, Mummy?"

"Indeed I do. Indeed I do. And I pray that the women who love them are—faithful. For I know, I know that if a woman lets her men, if a mother let her sons fail their country now, those sons will never forgive her. It's your honor I'm holding to, Hughie, against human instinct. After this war, those to be pitied won't be the sonless mothers or the crippled soldiers—it will be the men of fighting age who have not fought. Even if they could not, even at the best, they will spend the rest of their lives explaining why."

Hugh sat on the sofa now, close to her, and his head dropped on her shoulder. "Mummy, that's some comfort, that dope about other fellows taking it as I do. I felt lonely. I thought I was the only coward in America. Dad's condemning me; he can't speak to me naturally. I felt as if"—his voice faltered—"as if I couldn't stand it if you hated me, too."

The woman laughed a little. "Hughie, you know well that not anything to be imagined could stop my loving you."

He went on, breathing heavily but calmed. "You think that even if I am a blamed fool, if I went anyhow—that I'd rank as a decent white man? In your eyes—Dad's—my own?"

"I know it, Hughie. It's what you do, not how you feel doing it."

"If Brock would hold my hand!" The eyes of the two met with a dim smile and a memory of the childhood so near, so utterly gone. "I'd like Dad to respect me again," the boy spoke in a wistful, uncertain voice. "It's darned wretched to have your father despise you." He looked at her then. "Mummy, you're tired out; your face is gray. I'm a beast to keep you up. Go to bed, dear."

He kissed her, and with his arm around her waist led her through the dark hall to the door of her room, and kissed her again. And again, as she stood and watched there, he turned on the threshold of the den and threw one more kiss across the darkness, and his face shone with a smile that sent her to bed, smiling through her tears. She lay in the darkness, fragrant of honeysuckle outside, and her sore heart was full of the boys—of Hugh struggling in his crisis; still more, perhaps, of Brock whose birthday it was, Brock in France, in the midst of "many and great dangers," yet—she knew—serene and buoyant among them because his mind was "stayed." Not long these thoughts held her; for she was so deadened with the stress of many emotions that nature asserted itself and shortly she feel asleep.

It may have been two or three hours she slept. She knew afterward that it must have been at about three of the summer morning when a dream came which, detailed and vivid as it was, probably filled in time only the last minute or so before awakening. It seemed to her that glory suddenly flooded the troubled world; the infinite, intimate joy, impossible to put into words, was yet a defined and long first chapter of her dream. After that she stood on the bank of a river, a river perhaps miles wide, and with the new light-heartedness filling her she looked and saw a mighty bridge which ran brilliant with many-colored lights, from her to the misty further shore of the river. Over the bridge passed a throng of radiant young men, boys, all in uniform. "How glorious!" she seemed to cry out in delight, and with that she saw Brock.

Very far off, among the crowd of others, she saw him, threading his way through the throng. He came, unhurried yet swift, and on his face was an amused, loving smile which was perhaps the look of him which she remembered best. By his side walked old Mavourneen, the wolf-hound, Brock's hand on the shaggy head. The two swung steadily toward her, Brock smiling into her eyes, holding her eyes with his, and as they were closer, she heard Mavourneen crying in wordless dumb joy, crying as she had not done since the day when Brock came home the last time. Above the sound Brock's voice spoke, every trick of inflection so familiar, so sweet, that the joy of it was sharp, like pain.

"Mother, I'm coming to take Hughie's hand—to take Hughie's hand," he repeated.

And with that Mavourneen's great cry rose above his voice. And suddenly she was awake. Somewhere outside the house, yet near, the dog was loudly, joyfully crying. Out of the deep stillness of the night burst the sound of the joyful crying.

The woman shot from her bed and ran barefooted, her heart beating madly, into the darkness of the hall to the landing on the stairway. Something halted her. There was a broad, uncurtained pane of glass in the front door of the house. From the landing one might look down the stone steps outside and see clearly in the bright moonlight as far as the beginning of the rose archway. As she stood gasping, from beneath the flowers Brock stepped into the moonlight and began, unhurried, buoyant, as she had but now seen him in her dream, to mount the steps. Mavourneen pressed at his side, and his hand was on the dog's head. As he came, he lifted his face to his mother with the accustomed, every-day smile which she knew, as if he were coming home, as he had come home on many a moonlit evening from a dance in town to talk the day over with her. As she stared, standing in the dark on the landing, her pulse racing, yet still with the stillness of infinity, an arm came around her, a hand gripped her shoulder, and young Hugh's voice spoke.

"Mother! It's Brock!" he whispered.

At the words she fled headlong down to the door and caught at the handle. It was fastened, and for a moment she could not think of the bolt. Brock stood close outside; she saw the light on his brown head and the bend in the long, strong fingers that caressed Mavourneen's fur. He smiled at her happily—Brock—three feet away. Just as the bolt loosened, with an inexplicable, swift impulse she was cold with terror. For the half of a second, perhaps, she halted, possessed by some formless fear stronger than herself—humanity dreading something not human, something unknown, overwhelming. She halted not a whole second—for it was Brock. Brock! Wide open she flung the door and sprang out.

There was no one there. Only Mavourneen stood in the cold moonlight, and cried, and looked up, puzzled, at empty air.

"Oh, Brock, Brock! Oh, dear Brock!" the woman called and flung out her arms. "Brock—Brock—don't leave me. Don't go!"

Mavourneen sniffed about the dark hall, investigating to find the master who had come home and gone away so swiftly. With that young Hugh was lifting her in his arms, carrying her up the broad stairs into his room. "You're barefooted," he spoke brokenly.

She caught his hand as he wrapped her in a rug on the sofa. "Hugh—you saw—it was Brock?"

"Yes, dearest, it was our Brock," answered Hugh stumblingly.

"You saw—and I—and Mavourneen."

"Mavonrneen is Irish," young Hugh said. "She has the second sight," and the big old dog laid her nose on the woman's knee and lifted topaz eyes, asking questions, and whimpered broken-heartedly.

"Dear dog," murmured the woman and drew the lovely head to her. "You saw him." And then; "Hughie—he came to tell us. He is—dead."

"I think so," whispered young Hugh with bent head.

Then, fighting for breath, she told what had happened—the dream, the intense happiness of it, how Brock had come smiling. "And Hugh, the only thing he said, two or three times over, was, 'I'm coming to take Hughie's hand.'"

The lad turned upon her a shining look. "I know, mother. I didn't hear, of course, but I knew, when I saw him, it was for me, too. And I'm ready. I see my way now. Mother, get Dad."

Hugh, the elder, still sleeping in his room at the far side of the house, opened heavy eyes. Then he sprang up. "Evelyn! What is it?"

"Oh, Hugh—come! Oh, Hugh! Brock—Brock—" She could not say the words; there was no need. Brock's father caught her hands. In bare words then she told him.

"My dear," urged the man, "you've had a vivid dream. That's all. You were thinking about the boys; you were only half awake; Mavourneen began to cry—the dog means Brock. It was easy—" his voice faltered—"to—to believe the rest."

"Hugh, I know, dear. Brock came to tell me. He said he would." Later, that day, when a telegram arrived from the War Office there was no new shock, no added certainty to her assurance. She went on: "Hughie saw him. And Mavourneen. But I can't argue. We still have a boy, Hugh, and he needs us—he's waiting. Oh, my dear, Hughie is going to France!"

"Thank God!" spoke Hugh's father.

Hand tight in hand like young lovers the two came across to the room where their boy waited, tense. "Father—Dad—you'll give me back your respect, won't you?" The strong young hand held out was shaking. "Because I'm going, Dad. But you have to know that I was—a coward."

"No, Hugh."

"Yes. And Dad, I'm afraid—now. But I've got the hang of things, and nothing could keep me. Will you, do you despise me—now—that I still hate it—if—if I go just the same?"

The big young chap shook so that his mother, his tall mother, put her arms about him to steady him. He clutched her hand hard and repeated, through quivering lips, "Would you despise me still, Dad?"

For a moment the father could not answer. Then difficult tears of manhood and maturity forced their way from his eyes and unheeded rolled down his cheeks. With a step he put his arms about the boy as if the boy were a child, and the boy threw his about his father's shoulders.

For a long second the two tall men stood so. The woman, standing apart, through the shipwreck of her earthly life was aware only of happiness safe where sorrow and loss could not touch it. What was separation, death itself, when love stronger than death held people together as it held Hugh and her boys and herself? Then the older Hugh stood away, still clutching the lad's hand, smiling through unashamed tears.

"Hugh," he said, "in all America there's not a man prouder of his son than I am of you. There's not a braver soldier in our armies than the soldier who's to take my name into France." He stopped and steadied himself; he went on: "It would have broken my heart, boy, if you had failed—failed America. And your mother—and Brock and me. Failed your own honor. It would have meant for us shame and would have bowed our heads; it would have meant for you disaster. Don't fear for your courage, Hugh; the Lord won't forsake the man who carries the Lord's colors."

Young Hugh turned suddenly to his mother. "I'm at peace now. You and Dad—honor me. I'll deserve respect from—my country. It will be a wall around me—And—" he caught her to him and crushed his mouth to hers—"dearest—Brock will hold my hand."



THE SILVER STIRRUP

In the most unexpected spots vital sparks of history blaze out. Time seems, once in a while, powerless to kill a great memory. Romance blooms sometimes untarnished across centuries of commonplace. In a new world old France lives.

* * * * *

It is computed that about one-seventh of the French-Canadian population of Canada enlisted in the great war. The stampede of heroism seems to have left them cold. A Gospel of the Province first congealed the none too fiery blood of the habitants, small farmers, very poor, thinking in terms of narrowest economy, of one pig and ten children, of painstaking thrift and a bare margin to subsistence. Such conditions stifle world interests. The earthquake which threatened civilization disturbed the habitant merely because it hazarded his critical balance on the edge of want. The cataclysm over the ocean was none of his affair. And his affairs pressed. What about the pig if one went to war? And could Alphonse, who is fourteen, manage the farm so that there would be vegetables for winter? Tell me that.

When in September, 1914, I went to Canada for two weeks of camping I had heard of this point of view. Dick Lindsley and I were met at the Club Station on the casual railway which climbs the mountains through Quebec Province, by four guides, men from twenty to thirty-five, powerfully built chaps, deep-shouldered and slim-waisted, lithe as wild-cats. It was a treat to see their muscles, like machines in the pink of order, adjust to the heavy pacquetons, send a canoe whipping through the water. There was one exception to the general physical perfection; one of Dick's men, a youngster of perhaps twenty-two, limped. He covered ground as well as the others, for all of that; he picked the heaviest load and portaged it at an uneven trot, faster than his comrades; he was what the habitants call "ambitionne." Dick's canoe was loaded first, owing to the fellow's efficiency, and I waited while it got away and watched the lame boy. He had an interesting face, aquiline and dark, set with vivid light-blue eyes, shooting restless fire. I registered an intention to get at this lad's personality. The chance came two days later. My men were off chopping on a day, and I suddenly needed to go fishing.

"Take Philippe," offered Dick. "He handles a boat better than any of them."

Philippe and I shortly slipped into the Guardian's Pool, at the lower end of the long lake of the Passes. "It is here, M'sieur," Philippe announced, "that it is the custom to take large ones."

By which statement the responsibility of landing record trout was on my shoulders. I thought I would have a return whack. My hands in the snarly flies and my back to Philippe I spoke around my pipe, yet spoke distinctly.

"Why aren't you in France fighting?"

The canoe shivered down its length as if the man at its stern had jumped. There was a silence. Then Philippe's deep, boyish voice answered.

"As M'sieur sees, one is lame."

I felt a hotness emerging from my flannel collar and rushing up my face as I bent over that damned Silver Doctor that wouldn't loose its grip on the Black Hackle. I didn't see the Black Hackle or the Silver Doctor for a moment. "Beg pardon," I growled. "I forgot." I mumbled platitudes.

"M'sieur le Docteur has right," Philippe announced unruffled. "One should fight for France. I have tried to enlist, there are three times, explaining that I am 'capable' though I walk not evenly. But one will not have me. Therefore I have shame, me. I have, naturally, more shame than another because of Jeanne."

"Because of Jeanne?" I repeated. "Who is Jeanne?"

There was a pause; a queer feeling made me slew around. Philippe's old felt hat was being pulled off as if he were entering a church.

"But—Jeanne, M'sieur," he stated as if I must understand. "Jeanne d'Arc. Tiens—the Maid of France."

"The Maid of France!" I was puzzled. "What has she to do with it?"

"But everything, M'sieur." The vivid eyes flamed. "M'sieur does not know, perhaps, that my grandfather fought under Jeanne?"

"Your grandfather!" I flung it at him in scorn. The man was a poor lunatic.

"But yes, M'sieur. My grandfather, lui-meme."

"But, Philippe, the Maid of Orleans died in 1431." I remembered that date. The Maid is one of my heroic figures.

Philippe shrugged his shoulders. "Oh—as for a grandpere! But not the grandpere a present, he who keeps the grocery shop in St. Raymond. Certainly not that grandfather. It is to say the grandpere of that grandpere. Perhaps another yet, or even two or three more. What does it matter? One goes back a few times of grandfathers and behold one arrives at him who was armorer for the Maid—to whom she gave the silver stirrup."

"The silver stirrup." My Leonard rod bumped along the bow; my flies tangled again in the current. I squirmed about till I faced the guide in the stern. "Philippe, what in hell do you mean by this drool of grandfathers and silver stirrups?"

The boy, perfectly respectful, not forgetting for a second his affair of keeping the canoe away from the fish-hole, looked at me squarely, and his uncommon light eyes gleamed out of his face like the eyes of a prophet. "M'sieur, it is a tale doubtless which seems strange to you, but to us others it is not strange. M'sieur lives in New York, and there are automobiles and trolley-cars and large buildings en masse, and to M'sieur the world is made of such things. But there are other things. We who live in quiet places, know. One has not too much of excitement, we others, so that one remembers a great event which has happened to one's family many years. Yes, indeed, M'sieur, centuries. If one has not much one guards as a souvenir the tale of the silver stirrup of Jeanne. Yes, for several generations."

The boy was apparently unconscious that his remarks were peculiar. "Philippe, will you tell me what you mean by a silver stirrup which Jeanne d'Arc gave to your ancestors?"

"But with pleasure, M'sieur," he answered readily, with the gracious French politeness which one meets among the habitants side by side with sad lapses of etiquette. "It is all-simple that the old grandfather, the ancient, he who lived in France when the Maid fought her wars, was an armorer. 'Ca fait que'—sa fak, Philippe pronounced it—'so it happened that on a day the stirrup of the Maid broke as her horse plunged, and my grandfather, the ancient, he ran quickly and caught the horse's head. And so it happened—ce fait que—that my grandfather was working at that moment on a fine stirrup of gold for her harness, for though they burned her afterwards, they gave her then all that there was of magnificence. And the old follow—le vieux—whipped out the golden stirrup from his pocket, quite prepared for use, so it happened—and he put it quickly in the place of the silver one which she had been using. And Jeanne smiled. 'You are ready to serve France, Armorer.'

"She bent then and looked le vieux in the face—but he was young at the time.

"'Are you not Baptiste's son, of Doremy?' asked the Maid.

"'Yes, Jeanne,' said my grandpere.

"'Then keep the silver stirrup to remember our village, and God's servant Jeanne,' she said, and gave it to him with her hand."

If a square of Gobelin tapestry had emerged from the woods and hung itself across the gunwale of my canvas canoe it would not have been more surprising. I got my breath. "And the stirrup, what became of it?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "Sais pas," he answered with French nonchalance. "One does not know that. It is a long time, M'sieur le Docteur. It was lost, that stirrup, some years ago. It may be a hundred years. It may be two hundred. My grandfather, he who keeps the grocery shop, has told me that there is a saying that a Martel must go to France to find the silver stirrup. In every case I do not know. It is my wish to fight for France, but as for the stirrup or Jeanne—sais pas." Another shrug. With that he was making oration, his light eyes flashing, his dark face working with feeling, about the bitterness of being a cripple, and unable to go into the army.

"It is not comme il faut, M'sieur le Docteur, that a man whose very grandfather fought for Jeanne should fail France now in her need. Jeanne, one knows, was the saviour of France. Is it not?" I agreed. "It is my inheritance, therefore, to fight as my ancient grandfather fought." I looked at the lame boy, not knowing the repartee. He began again. "Also I am the only one of the family proper to go, except Adolphe, who is not very proper, having had a tree to fall on the lungs and leave him liable to fits; and also Jacques and Louis are too young, and Jean Baptiste he is blind of one eye, God knows. So it is I who fail! I fail! Jesus Christ! To stay at home like a coward when France needs men!"

"But you are Canadian, Philippe. Your people have been here two hundred years."

"M'sieur, I am of France. I belong there with the fighting men." His look was a flame, and suddenly I know why he was firing off hot shot at me. I am a surgeon.

"What's the matter with your leg?" I asked.

The brilliant eyes flashed. "Ah!" he brought out, "One hoped—If M'sieur le Docteur would but see. I may be cured. To be straight—to march!" He was trembling.

Later, in the shifting sunshine at the camp door, with the odors of hemlocks and balsams about us, the lake rippling below, I had an examination. I found that the lad's lameness was a trouble to be cured easily by an operation. I hesitated. Was it my affair to root this youngster out of safety and send him to death in the debacle over there? Yet what right had I to set limits? He wanted to offer his life; how could I know what I might be blocking if I withheld the cure? My job was to give strength to all I could reach.

"Philippe," I said, "if you'll come to New York next month I'll set you up with a good leg."

In September, 1915, Dick and I came up for our yearly trip, but Philippe was not with us. Philippe, after drilling at Valcartier, was drilling in England. I had lurid post cards off and on; after a while I knew that he was "somewhere in France." A grim gray card came with no post-mark, no writing but the address and Philippe's labored signature; for the rest there were printed sentences: "I am well. I am wounded. I am in hospital. I have had no letter from you lately." All of which was struck out but the welcome words, "I am well." So far then I had not cured the lad to be killed. Then for weeks nothing. It came to be time again to go to Canada for the hunting. I wrote the steward to get us four men, as usual, and Lindsley and I alighted from the rattling train at the club station in September, 1916, with a mild curiosity to see what Fate had provided as guides, philosophers and friends to us for two weeks. Paul Sioui—that was nice—a good fellow Paul; and Josef—I shook hands with Josef; the next face was a new one—ah, Pierre Beaurame—one calls one's self that—on s'appelle comme ca. Bon jour! I turned, and got a shock. The fourth face, at which I looked, was the face of Philippe Martel. I looked, speechless. And with that the boy laughed. "It is that M'sieur cannot again cure my leg," answered Philippe, and tapped proudly on a calf which echoed with a wooden sound.

"You young cuss," I addressed him savagely. "Do you mean to say you have gone and got shot in that very leg I fixed up for you?"

Philippe rippled more laughter—of pure joy—of satisfaction. "But, yes, M'sieur le Docteur, that leg meme. Itself. In a battle, M'sieur le Docteur gave me the good leg for a long enough time to serve France. It was all that there was of necessary. As for now I may not fight again, but I can walk and portage comme il faut. I am capable as a guide. Is it not, Josef?" He appealed, and the men crowded around to back him up with deep, serious voices.

"Ah, yes, M'sieur."

"B'en capable!"

"He can walk like us others—the same!" they assured me impressively.

Philippe was my guide this year. It was the morning after we reached camp. "Would M'sieur le Docteur be too busy to look at something?"

I was not. Philippe stood in the camp doorway in the patch of sunlight where he had sat two years before when I looked over his leg. He sat down again, in the shifting sunshine, the wooden leg sticking out straight and pathetic, and began to take the covers off a package. There were many covers; the package was apparently valuable. As he worked at it the odors of hemlock and balsam, distilled by hot sunlight, rose sweet and strong, and the lake splashed on pebbles, and peace that passes understanding was about us.

"It was in a bad battle in Lorraine," spoke Philippe into the sunshiny peace, "that I lost M'sieur le Docteur's leg. One was in the front trench and there was word passed to have the wire cutters ready, and also bayonets, for we were to charge across the open towards the trenches of the Germans—perhaps one hundred and fifty yards, eight arpents—acres—as we say in Canada. Our big guns back did the preparation, making what M'sieur le Docteur well knows is called a rideau—a fire curtain. We climbed out of our trench with a shout and followed the fire curtain; so closely we followed that it seemed we should be killed by our own guns. And then it stopped—too soon, M'sieur le Docteur. Very many Boches were left alive in that trench in front, and they fired as we came, so that some of us were hit, and so terrible was the fire that the rest were forced back to our own trench which we had left. It is so sometimes in a fight, M'sieur le Docteur. The big guns make a little mistake, and many men have to die. Yet it is for France. And as I ran with the others for the shelter of the trench, and as the Boches streamed out of their trench to make a counter attack with hand-grenades I tripped on something. It was little Rene Dumont, whom M'sieur le Docteur remembers. He guided for our camp when Josef was ill in the hand two years ago. In any case he lay there, and I could not let him lie to be shot to pieces. So I caught up the child and ran with him across my shoulders and threw him in the trench, and as he went in there was a cry behind me, 'Philippe!'

"I turned, and one waved arms at me—a comrade whom I did not know very well—but he lay in the open and cried for help. So I thought of Jeanne d'Arc, and how she had no fear, and was kind, and with that, back I trotted to get the comrade. But at that second—pouf!—a big noise, and I fell down and could not get up. It was the good new leg of M'sieur le Docteur which those sacres Boches had blown off with a hand-grenade. So that I lay dead enough. And when I came alive it was dark, and also the leg hurt—but yes! I was annoyed to have ruined that leg which you gave me—M'sieur le Docteur."

I grinned, and something ached inside of me.

Philippe went on. "It was then, when I was without much hope and weak and in pain and also thirsty, that a thing happened. It is a business without pleasure, M'sieur le Docteur, that—to lie on a battle-field with a leg shot off, and around one men dead, piled up—yes, and some not dead yet, which is worse. They groan. One feels unable to bear it. It grows cold also, and the searchlights of the Boches play so as to prevent rescue by comrades. They seem quite horrible, those lights. One lives, but one wishes much to die. So it happened that, as I lay there, I heard a step coming, not crawling along as the rescuers crawl and stopping when the lights flare, but a steady step coming freely. And with that I was lifted and carried quickly into a wood. There was a hole in the ground there, torn by a shell deeply, and the friend laid me there and put a flask to my lips, and I was warm and comforted. I looked up and I saw a figure in soldier's clothing of an old time, such as one sees in books—armor of white. And the face smiled down at me. 'You will be saved,' a voice said; and the words sounded homely, almost like the words of my grandfather who keeps the grocery shop. 'You will be saved.' It seemed to me that the voice was young and gentle and like a woman's.

"'Who are you?' I asked, and I had a strange feeling, afraid a little M'sieur, yet glad to a marvel. I got no answer to my question, but I felt something pressed into my hand, and then I spoke, but I suppose I was a little delirious, M'sieur, for I heard myself say a thing I had not been thinking. 'A Martel must return to France to find the silver stirrup'—I said that, M'sieur. Why I do not know. They were the words I had heard my grandfather speak. Perhaps the hard feeling in my hand—but I cannot explain, M'sieur le Docteur. In any case, there was all at once a great thrill through my body, such as I have never known. I sat up quickly and stared at the figure. It stood there. M'sieur will probably not believe me—the figure stood there in white armor, with a sword—and I knew it for Jeanne—the Maid. With that I knew no more. When I woke it was day. I was still lying in the crater of the shell which had torn up the earth of a very old battle-field, but in my hand I held tight—this."

Philippe drew off the last cover with a dramatic flourish and opened the box which had been wrapped so carefully. I bent over him. In the box, before my eyes, lay an ancient worn and battered silver stirrup. There were no words to say. I stared at the boy. And with that suddenly he had slewed around clumsily—because of his poor wooden leg—and was on his knees at my feet. He held out the stirrup.

"M'sieur le Docteur, you gave me a man's chance and honor, and the joy of fighting for France. I can never tell my thanks. I have nothing to give you—but this. Take it, M'sieur le Docteur. It is not much, yet to me the earth holds nothing so valuable. It is the silver stirrup of Jeanne d'Arc. It is yours."

* * * * *

In a glass case on the wall of my library hangs an antique bit of harness which is my most precious piece of property. How its story came about I do not even try to guess. As Philippe said the action of that day took place on a very old battle-field. The shell which made the sheltering crater doubtless dug up earth untouched for hundreds of years. That it should have dug up the very object which was a tradition in the Martel family and should have laid it in the grasp of a Martel fighting for France with that tradition at the bottom of his mind seems incredible. The story of the apparition of the Maid is incredible to laughter, or tears. No farther light is to be got from the boy, because he believes his story. I do not try to explain, I place the episode in my mind alongside other things incredible, things lovely and spiritual, and, to our viewpoint of five years ago, things mad. Many such have risen luminous, undesirable, unexplained, out of these last horrible years, and wait human thought, it may be human development, to be classified. I accept and treasure the silver stirrup as a pledge of beautiful human gratitude. I hold it as a visible sign that French blood keeps a loyalty to France which ages and oceans may not weaken.



THE RUSSIAN

The little dinner-party of grizzled men strayed from the dining-room and across the hall into the vast library, arguing mightily.

"The great war didn't do it. World democracy was on the way. The war held it back."

It was the United States Senator, garrulous and incisive, who issued that statement. The Judge, the host, wasted not a moment in contradicting. "You're mad, Joe," he threw at him with a hand on the shoulder of the man who was still to him that promising youngster, little Joe Burden of The School. "Held back democracy! The war! Quite mad, my son."

The guest of the evening, a Russian General who had just finished five strenuous years in the Cabinet of the Slav Republic, dropped back a step to watch, with amused eyes, strolling through the doorway, the two splendid old boys, the Judge's arm around the Senator's shoulders, fighting, sputtering, arguing with each other as they had fought and argued forty odd years up to date.

Two minutes more and the party of six had settled into deep chairs, into a mammoth davenport, before a blazing fire of spruce and birch. Cigars, liqueurs, coffee, the things men love after dinner, were there; one had the vaguest impression of two vanishing Japanese persons who might or might not have brought trays and touched the fire and placed tiny tables at each right hand; an atmosphere of completeness was present, one did not notice how. One settled with a sigh of satisfaction into comfort, and chose a cigar. One laughed to hear the Judge pound away at the Senator.

"It's all a game." Dr. Rutherford turned to the Russian. "They're devoted old friends, not violent enemies, General. The Senator stirs up the Judge by taking impossible positions and defending them savagely. The Judge invariably falls into the trap. Then a battle. Their battles are the joy of the Century Club. The Senator doesn't believe for an instant that the war held back democracy."

At that the Senator whirled. "I don't? But I do.—Don't smoke that cigar, Rutherford, on your life. Peter will have these atrocities. Here—Kaki, bring the doctor the other box.—That's better.—I don't believe what I said? Now listen. How could the fact that the world was turned into a military camp, officers commanding, privates obeying, rank, rank, rank everywhere throughout mankind, how could that fail to hinder democracy, which is in its essence the leveling of ranks? Tell me that!"

The doctor grinned at the Russian. "What about it, General? What do you think?"

The General answered slowly, with a small accent but in the wonderfully good English of an educated Russian. "I do not agree with the Sena-torr," he stated, and five heads turned to listen. There was a quality of large personality in the burr of the voice, in the poise and soldierly bearing, in the very silence of the man, which made his slow words of importance. "I believe indeed that the Sena-torr is partly—shall I say speaking for argument?"

The Senator laughed.

"The great war, in which all of us here had the honor to bear arms—that death grapple of tyranny against freedom—it did not hold back the cause of humanity, of democracy, that war. Else thousands upon thousands of good lives were given in vain."

There was a hushed moment. Each of the men, men now from fifty to sixty years old, had been a young soldier in that Homeric struggle. Each was caught back at the words of the Russian to a vision of terrible places, of thundering of great guns, of young, generous blood flowing like water. The deep, assured tones of the Russian spoke into the solemn pause.

"There is an episode of the war which I remember. It goes to show, so far as one incident may, where every hour was crowded with drama, how forces worked together for democracy. It is the story of a common man of my country who was a private in the army of your country, and who was lifted by an American gentleman to hope and opportunity, and, as God willed it, to honor. My old friend the Judge can tell that episode better than I. My active part in it was small. If you like"—the dark foreign eyes flashed about the group—"if you like I should much enjoy hearing my old friend review that little story of democracy."

There was a murmur of approval. One man spoke, a fighting parson he had been. "It argues democracy in itself, General, that a Russian aristocrat, the brother of a Duke, should remember so well the adventures of a common soldier."

The smouldering eyes of the Slav turned to the speaker and regarded him gravely. "I remember those adventures well," he answered.

The Judge, flung back in a corner of the davenport, his knees crossed and rings from his cigar ascending, stared at the ceiling, "Come along, Peter. You're due to entertain us," the Senator adjured him, and the Judge, staring upwards, began.

"This is the year 1947. It was in 1917 that the United States went into war—thirty years ago. The fifth of June, 1917, was set, as you remember, for the registration of all men in the country over twenty-one and under thirty-one for the draft. I was twenty-three, living in this house with my father and mother, both dead before the war ended. Being outside of the city, the polling place where I was due to register was three miles off, at Hiawatha. I registered in the morning; the polls were open from seven A.M. to nine P.M. My mother drove me over, and the road was being mended, and, as happened in those days in the country, half a mile of it was almost impassable. There were no adjustable lift-roads invented then. We got through the ruts and stonework, but it was hard going, and we came home by a detour through the city rather than pass again that beastly half mile. That night was dark and stormy, with rain at intervals, and as we sat in this room, reading, the three of us—" The Judge paused and gazed a moment at the faces in the lamplight, at the chairs where his guests sat. It was as if he called back to their old environment for a moment the two familiar figures which had belonged here, which had gone out of his life. "We sat in this room, the three of us," he repeated, "and the butler came in.

"'If you please, sir, there's a young man here who wants to register,' he said.

"'Wants to register!' my father threw at him. 'What do you mean?'

"We all went outside, and there we found not one, but five boys, Russians. There was a munitions plant a mile back of us and the lads worked there, and had wakened to the necessity of registering at the last moment, being new in the country and with little English. They had directions to go to the same polling place as mint, Hiawatha, but had gotten lost, and, seeing our lights, brought up here. Hiawatha, as I said, is three miles away. It was eight-thirty and the polls closed at nine. We brought the youngsters inside, and I dashed to the garage for the car and piled the delighted lads into it and drove them across.

"At least I tried to. But when we came to the bad half mile the car rebelled at going the bit twice in a day, and the motor stalled. There we were—eight-forty-five P.M.—polls due to close at nine—a year's imprisonment for five well-meaning boys for neglecting to register. I was in despair. Then suddenly one of the boys saw a small red light ahead, the tail light of an automobile. We ran along and found a big car standing in front of a house. As we got there, out from the car stepped a woman with a lantern, and as the light swung upward I saw that she was tall and fair and young and very lovely. She stopped as the six of us loomed out of the darkness. I knew that a professor from the University in town had taken this house for the summer, but I don't know the people or their name. It was no time to be shy. I gave my name and stated the case.

"The girl looked at me. 'I've seen you,' she said. 'I know you are Mr. McLane. I'll drive you across. One moment, till I tell my mother.'

"She was in the house and out again without wasting a second, and as she flashed into the car I heard a gasp, and I turned and saw in the glare of the headlights as they sprang on one of my Russians, a gigantic youngster of six feet four or so, standing with his cap off and his head bent, as he might have stood before a shrine, staring at the spot where the girl had disappeared into the car. Then the engine purred and my squad tumbled in.

"We made the polls on the tap of nine. Afterwards we drove back to my car and among us, with the lantern, we got the motor running again, the girl helping efficiently. The big fellow, when we told her good-night, astonished me by dropping on his knees and kissing the edge of her skirt. But I put it down to Slavic temperament and took it casually. I've learned since what Russian depth of feeling means—and tenacity of purpose. There was one more incident. When I finally drove the lads up to their village the big chap, who spoke rather good English when he spoke at all, which was seldom, invited me to have some beer. I was tired and wanted to get home, so I didn't. Then the young giant excavated in his pocket and brought out a dollar bill.

"'You get beer tomorrow.' And when I laughed and shoved it back he flushed. 'Excuse—Mr. Sir,' he said. 'I make mistake.' Suddenly he drew himself up—about to the treetops, it looked, for he was a huge, a magnificent lad. He tossed out his arm to me. 'Some day,' he stated dramatically, 'I do two things. Some day I give Mr. Sir somethings more than dollar—and he will take. And—some day I marry—Miss Angel!'

"You may believe I was staggered. But I simply stuck out my fist and shook his and said: 'Good. No reason on earth why a fellow with the right stuff shouldn't get anywhere. It's a free country.' And the giant drew his black brows together and remarked slowly: 'All countries—world—is to be free. War will sweep up kings—and other—rubbish. I—shall be—a man.'

"Besides his impressive build, the boy had—had—" the Judge glanced at the Russian General, whose eyes glowed at the fire. "The boy had a remarkable face. It was cut like a granite hill, in sweeping masses. All strength. His eyes were coals. I went home thoughtful, and the Russian boy's intense face was in my mind for days, and I told myself many times that he not only would be, but already was, a man.

"Events quickstepped after that. I got to France within the year, and, as you remember, work was ready. It was perhaps eighteen months after that registration day, June fifth, which we keep so rightly now as one of our sacred days, that one morning I was in a fight. Our artillery had demoralized the enemy at a point and sent them running. There was one machine gun left working in the Hun trenches—doing a lot of damage. Suddenly it jammed. I was commanding my company, and I saw the chance, but also I saw a horrid mess of barbed wire. So I just ran forward a bit and up to the wire and started clipping, while that machine gun stayed jammed. Out of the corner of an eye I could see men rushing towards it in the German trench, and I knew I had only a moment before they got it firing again. Then, as I leaped far forward to reach a bit of entanglement, my foot slipped in a puddle and as I sprawled I saw our uniform and a dead American boy's face under me, and I fell headlong in his blood over him and into a bunch of wire. And couldn't get up. The wire held like the devil. I got more tied up at every pull. And my clippers had fallen from my hand and landed out of reach.

"'It's good night for me,' I thought, and was aware of a sharp regret. To be killed because of a nasty bit of wire! I had wanted to do a lot of things yet. With that something leaped, and I saw clippers flashing close by. A big man was cutting me loose, dragging me out, setting me on my feet. Then the roar of an exploding shell; the man fell—fell into the wire from which he had just saved me. There was no time to consider that; somehow I was back and leading my men—and then we had the trenches.

"The rest of that day was confusion, but we won a mile of earthworks, and at night I remembered the incident of the wire and the man who rescued me. By a miracle I found him in the field hospital. His head was bandaged, for the bit of shell had scraped his cheek and jaw, but his eyes were safe, and something in the glance out of them was familiar. Yet I didn't know him till he drew me over and whispered painfully, for it hurt him to talk:

"'Yester—day I did—give Mr. Sir somethings more than dollar. And he did—take it.'

"Then I know the big young Russian of registration day who had tried to tip me. Bless him! I got him transferred to my command and—" the Judge hesitated a bit and glanced at his distinguished guest. One surmised embarrassment in telling the story of the General's humble compatriot.

The General rose to his feet and stood before the fire facing the handful of men. "I can continue this anecdote from the point that is more easily than my friend the Judge," spoke the General. "I was in the confidence of that countryman of mine. I know. It was so that after he had been thus slightly useful to my friend the Judge, who was the Captain McLane at that time—"

The Judge broke in with a shout of deep laughter worthy of a boy of eighteen. "He 'slightly obliged me by saving my life." The American, threw that into the Russian's smooth sentences. "I put that fact before the jury."

The four men listening laughed also, but the Russian held up a hand and went on gravely: "It was quite simple, that episode, and the man's pleasure. I knew him well. But what followed was not ordinary. The Captain McLane saw to it that the soldier had his chance. He became an officer. He went alive through the war, and at the end the Captain McLane made it possible that he should be educated. His career was a gift from the Captain McLane—from my friend the Judge to that man, who is now—" the finished sentence halted a mere second—"who is now a responsible person of Russia.

"And it is the incident of that sort, it is that incident itself which I know, which leads me to combat—" he turned with a deep bow—"the position of the Sena-torr that the great war did not make for democracy. Gentlemen, my compatriot was a peasant, a person of ignorance, yet with a desire of fulfilling his possibilities. He had been born in social chains and tied to most sordid life, beyond hope, in old Russia. To try to shake free he had gone to America. But it was that caldron of fire, the war, which freed him, which fused his life and the life of the Captain McLane, so different in opportunity, and burned from them all trivialities and put them, stark-naked of advantages and of drawbacks artificial, side by side, as two lives merely. It made them—brothers. One gave and the other took as brothers without thought of false pride. They came from the furnace men. Both. Which is democracy—a chance for a tree to grow, for a flame to burn, for a river to flow; a chance for a man to become a man and not rest a vegetable anchored to the earth as—Oh, God!—for many centuries the Russian mujiks have rested. It is that which I understand by democracy. Freedom of development for everything which wants to develop. It was the earthquake of war which broke chains, loosened dams, cleared the land for young forests. It was war which made Russia a republic, which threw down the kingships, which joined common men and princes as comrades. God bless that liberating war! God grant that never in all centuries may this poor planet have another! God save democracy—humanity! Does the Sena-torr yet believe that the great war retarded democracy?" The Russian's brilliant, smouldering eyes swept about, inquiring.

There was a hush in the peaceful, firelit, lamp-lit room. And with that, as of one impulse, led by the Senator, the five men broke into handclapping. Tears stood in eyes, faces were twisted with emotion; each of these men had seen what the thing was—war; each knew what a price humanity had paid for freedom. Out of the stirring of emotion, out of the visions of trenches and charges and blood and agony and heroism and unselfishness and steadfastness, the fighting parson, he who had bent, under fire, many a day over dying men who waited his voice to help them across the border—the parson led the little company from the intense moment to commonplace.

"You haven't quite finished the story, General. The boy promised to do two things. He did the first; he gave the Judge 'something more than a dollar,' and the Judge took it—his life. But he said also he was going to marry—what did he call her?—Miss Angel. How about that?"

The Russian General, standing on the hearthrug, appeared to draw himself up suddenly with an access of dignity, and the Judge's boyish big laugh broke into the silence, "Tell them, Michael," said the Judge. "You've gone so far with the fairy story that they have a right to know the crowning glory of it. Tell them."

And suddenly the men sitting about noticed with one accord what, listening to the General's voice, they had not thought about—that the Russian was uncommonly tall—six feet four perhaps; that his face was carved in sweeping lines like a granite hillside, and that an old, long scar stretched from the vivid eyes to the mouth. The men stared, startled with a sudden simultaneous thought. The Judge, watching, smiled. Slowly the General put his hand into the breast pocket of his evening coat; slowly he drew out a case of dark leather, tooled wonderfully, set with stones. He opened the case and looked down; the strong face changed as if a breeze and sunshine passed over a mountain. He glanced up at the men waiting.

"I am no Duke's brother," he said, smiling, suddenly radiant. "That is a mistake of the likeness of a name, which all the world makes. I am born a mujik of Russia. But you, sir," and he turned to the parson, "you wish an answer of 'Miss Angel,' as the big peasant boy called that lovely spirit, so far above him in that night, so far above him still, and yet, God be thanked, so close today! Yes? Then this is my answer." He held out the miniature set with jewels.



ROBINA'S DOLL

Massive, sprawling, uncertain writing, two sentences to the page; a violent slant in the second line, down right, balanced by a drastic lessening of the letters, up right, in the line underneath; spelling not as advised in the Century Dictionary—a letter from Robina, aged eight. Robina's Aunt Evelyn, sitting in her dress and cap of a Red Cross nurse in the big base hospital in Paris, read the wandering, painstaking, very unsuccessful literary effort, laughing, half-crying, and kissed it enthusiastically.

"The darling baby! She shall have her doll if it takes—" Aunt Evelyn stopped thoughtfully.

It would take something serious to buy and equip the doll that Robina, with eight-year-old definiteness, had specified. The girl in the Red Cross dress read the letter over.

"Dear Aunt Evelyn," began Robina and struck no snags so far. "I liked your postcard so much." (The facilis descensus to an averni of literature began with a swoop down here.) "Mother is wel. Fother is wel. The baby is wel. The dog has sevven kitens." (Robina robbed Peter to pay Paul habitually in her spelling.) "Fother sais they lukk like choklit eclares. I miss you, dere Aunt Evelyn, because I lov you sew. I hope Santa Claus wil bring me a doll. I want a very bigg bride doll with a vale and flours an a trunk of close, and all her under-close to buton and unboton and to have pink ribons run into. I don't want anythig sode on. Come home, Aunt Evelyn, becaus I miss you. But if the poor wundead soljers ned you then don't come. But as soone as you can come to yure loving own girl—ROBINA."

The dear angel! Every affectionate, labored word was from the warm little heart; Evelyn Bruce knew that. She sat, smiling, holding the paper against her, seeing a vision of the faraway, beloved child who wrote it. She saw the dancing, happy brown eyes and the shining, cropped head of pale golden brown, and the straight, strong little figure; she heard the merry, ready giggle and the soft, slow tones that were always full of love to her. Robina, her sister's child, her own god-daughter had been her close friend from babyhood, and between them there was a bond of understanding which made nothing of the difference in years. Darling little Robina! Such a good, unspoiled little girl, for all of the luxury and devotion that surrounded her!

But—there was a difficulty just there. Robina was unspoiled indeed, yet, as the children of the very rich, she was, even at eight, sophisticated in a baby way. She had been given too many grand dolls not to know just the sort she wanted. She did not know that what she wanted cost money, but she knew the points desired—and they did cost money. Aunt Evelyn had not much money.

"This one extravagant thing I will do," said Evelyn Bruce, "and I'll give up my trip to England next week, and I'll do it in style. Robina won't want dolls much longer and this time she's got to have her heart's desire."

Which was doubtless foolish, yet when one is separated by an ocean and a war from one's own, it is perhaps easier to be foolish for a child's face and a child's voice, and love sent across the sea. So Evelyn Bruce wrote a letter to her cousin in England saying that she could not come to her till after Christmas. Then she went out into Paris and ordered the doll, and reveled in the ordering, for a very gorgeous person indeed it was, and worthy to journey from Paris to a little American. It was to be ready in just two weeks, and Miss Bruce was to come in and look over the fine lady and her equipment as often as desired, before she started on her ocean voyage.

"It would simply break my heart if she were torpedoed."

Evelyn confided that, childlike, to the black-browed, stout Frenchwoman who took a personal interest in every "buton," and then she opened her bag and brought out Robina's photograph, standing, in a ruffled bonnet, her solemn West Highland White terrier dog in her arms, on the garden path of "Graystones" between tall foxgloves. And the Frenchwoman tossed up enraptured hands at the beauty of the little girl who was to get the doll, and did not miss the great, splendid house in the background, or the fact that the dog was of a "chic" variety.

The two weeks fled, every day full of the breathless life—and death—of a hospital in war-torn France. Every day the girl saw sights and heard sounds which it seemed difficult to see and hear and go on living, but she moved serene through such an environment, because she could help. Every day she gave all that was in her to the suffering boys who were carried, in a never-ending stream of stretchers, into the hospital. And the strength she gave flowed back to her endlessly from, she could not but believe it, the underlying source of all strength, which stretches beneath and about us all, and from which those who give greatly know how to draw.

Two or three times, during the two weeks, Evelyn had gone in to inspect the progress of Robina's doll, and spent a happy and light-hearted quarter of an hour with friendly Madame of the shop, deciding the color of the lady's party coat, and of the ribbons in her minute underclothes, and packing and repacking the trunk with enchanting fairy foolishnesses. Again and again she smiled to herself, in bed at night, going about her work in the long days, as she thought of the little girl's rapture over the many and carefully planned details. For, with all the presents showered on her, Robina's aunt knew that Robina had never had anything as perfect as this exquisite Paris doll and her trousseau.

The day came on which Evelyn was to make her final visit to "La Marquise," as Madame called the doll, and the nurse was needed in the hospital and could not go. But she telephoned Madame and made an appointment for tomorrow.

"'La Marquise' finds herself quite ready for the voyage," Madame spoke over the telephone. "She is all which there is of most lovely; Paris itself has never seen a so ravishing doll. I say it. We wait anxiously to greet Mademoiselle, I and La Marquise," Madame assured her. Evelyn, laughing with sheer pleasure, made an engagement for the next day, without fail, and went back to her work.

There was a badly wounded poilu in her ward, whom the girl had come to know well. He was young, perhaps twenty-seven, and his warm brown eyes were full of a quality of gentleness which endeared him to everyone who came near him. He was very grateful, very uncomplaining, a simple-minded, honest, common, young peasant, with a charm uncommon. The unending bright courage with which he made light of cruel pain, was almost more than Evelyn, used as she was to brave men's pain, could bear. He could not get well—the doctors said that—and it seemed that he could not die.

"If Corporal Duplessis might die," Evelyn spoke to the surgeon.

He answered, considering: "I don't see what keeps him alive."

"I believe," said Evelyn, "there's something on his mind. He sighs constantly. Broken-heartedly. I believe he can't die until his mind is relieved."

"It may be that," agreed Dr. Norton. "You could help him if you could get him to tell you." And moved on to the next shattered thing that had been, so lately, a strong, buoyant boy.

Evelyn went back to Duplessis and bent over him and spoke cheerful words; he smiled up at her with quick French responsiveness, and then sighed the heavy, anxious sigh which had come to be part of him. With that the girl took his one good hand and stroked it. "If you could tell the American Sister what it is," she spoke softly, "that troubles your mind, perhaps I might help you. We Americans, you know," and she smiled at him, "we are wonderful people. We can do all sorts of magic—and I want to help you to rest, so much. I'd do anything to help you. Won't you tell me what it is that bothers?" Evelyn Bruce's voice was winning, and Duplessis' eyes rested on her affectionately.

"But how the Sister understands one!" he said. "It is true that there is a trouble. It hinders me to die"—and the heavy sigh swept out again. "It would be a luxury for me—dying. The pain is bad, at times. Yet the Sister knows I am glad to have it, for France. Ah, yes! But—if I might be released. Yet the thought of what I said to her keeps me from dying always."

"What you said 'to her,' corporal?" repeated Evelyn. "Can't you tell me what it was? I would try so hard to help you. I might perhaps."

"Who knows?" smiled the corporal, "It is true that Americans work magic. And the Sister is of a goodness! But yes. Yet the Sister may laugh at me, for it is a thing entirely childish, my trouble."

"I will not laugh at you, Corporal," said Evelyn, gravely, and felt something wring her heart.

"If—then—if the Sister will not think it foolish—I will tell." The Sister's answer was to stroke his fingers. "It is my child, my little girl," Duplessis began in his deep, weak tones. "It was to her I made the promise."

"What promise?" prompted Evelyn softly, as he stopped.

"One sees," the deep voice began again, "that when I told them goodbye, the mother and Marie my wife, and the petite, who has five years, then I started away, and would not look back, because I could not well bear it, Sister. And suddenly, as I strode to the street from our cottage, down the brick walk, where there are roses and also other flowers, on both sides—suddenly I heard a cry. And it was the voice of little Jeanne, the petite. I turned at that sound, for I could not help it, Sister, and between the flowers the little one came running, and as I bent she threw her arms about my neck and held me so tight, tight that I could not loosen the little hands, not without hurting her. 'I will not let you go—I will not let you go.' She cried that again and again. Till my heart was broken. But all the same, one had to go. One was due to join the comrades at the station, and the time was short. So that, immediately, I had a thought. 'My most dear,' I spoke to her. 'If thou wilt let me go, then I promise to send thee a great, beautiful doll, all in white, as a bride, like the cousin Annette at her wedding last week.' And then the clinging little hands loosened, and she said, wondering—for she is but a baby—'Wilt thou promise, my father?' And I said, 'Yes,' and kissed her quickly, and went away. So that now that I am wounded and am to die, that promise which I cannot keep to my petite, that promise hinders me to die."

The deep, sad voice stopped and the honest eyes of the peasant boy looked up at Evelyn, burning with the pain of his body and of his soul. And as Evelyn looked back, holding his hand and stroking it, it was as if the furnace of the soldier's pain melted together all the things she had ever cared to do. Yet it was a minute before she spoke.

"Corporal," she said, "your little girl shall have her doll, I will take it to her and tell her that her father sent it. Will you lie very still while I go and get the doll?"

The brown eyes looked up at her astounded, radiant, and the man caught the hem of her white veil and kissed it. "But the Americans—they do magic. You shall see, Sister, if I shall be still. I will not die before the Sister returns. It is a joy unheard of."

The girl ran out of the hospital and away into Paris, and burst upon Madame. Somehow she told the story in a few words, and Madame was crying as she laid "La Marquise" in a box.

"It is Mademoiselle who is an angel of the good God," she whispered, and kissed Evelyn unexpectedly on both cheeks.

Corporal Duplessis lay, waxen, starry-eyed, as the American Sister came back into the ward. His look was on her as she entered the far-away door, and he saw the box in her arms. The girl knelt and drew out the gorgeous plaything and stood it by the side of the still, bandaged figure. An expression as of amazed radiance came into the fast-dimming eyes—into those large, brown, childlike eyes which had seen so little of the gorgeousness of earth. His hand stirred a very little—enough, for Evelyn quickly moved the gleaming satin train of the doll under the groping fingers. The eyes lifted to Evelyn's face and the smile in them was that of a prisoner who suddenly sees the gate of his prison opened and the fields of home beyond. It mattered little, one may believe, to the welcoming hosts of heaven that the angel at the gate of release for the child-soul of Corporal Duplessis, the poilu, was only Robina's doll!



DUNDONALD'S DESTROYER

This is the year 1977. It will be objected that the episode I am going to tell, having happened in 1917, having been witnessed by twenty-odd thousand people, must have been, if true, for sixty years common property and an old tale. But when General Cochrane—who saved England at the end of the great war—told me the Kitchener incident of the story last year, sitting in the rose-garden of the White Hart Inn at Sonning-on-Thames, I had never heard of it.

I wonder why he told me. Probably, as is the case in most things which most people do, from a mixture of impulses. For one thing I am an American girl, with a fresher zest to hear tales of those titanic days than the people or the children of the people who lived through them. Also the great war of 1914 has stirred me since I was old enough to know about it, and I have read everything concerning it which I could lay hands on, and talked to everyone who had knowledge of it. Also, General Cochrane and I made friends from the first minute. I was a quite unimportant person of twenty-four years, he a magnificent hero of eighty, one of the proud figures of England; it made me a bit dizzy when I saw that he liked me. One feels, once in a long time, an unmistakable double pull, and knows that oneself and another are friends, and not age, color, race nor previous condition of servitude makes the slightest difference. To have that happen with a celebrity, a celebrity whom it would have been honor enough simply to meet, is quite dizzying. This was the way of it.