combine-harvesters with thirty-four horses. Oh! I guess I do love it
all.... I worked in a Spokane flour-mill, too, just to learn how flour
is made. There is nothing in the world so white, so clean, so pure as
flour made from the wheat of these hills!"

"Next you'll be telling me that you can bake bread," she rejoined, and
her laugh was low and sweet. Her eyes shone with soft blue gleams.

"Indeed I can! I bake all the bread we use," he said, stoutly. "And I
flatter myself I can beat any girl you know."

"You can beat mine, I'm sure. Before I went to college I did pretty
well. But I learned too much there. Now my mother and sisters, and
brother Jim, all the family except dad, make fun of my bread."

"You have a brother? How old is he?"

"One brother--Jim, we call him. He--he is just past twenty-one." She
faltered the last few words.

Kurt felt on common ground with her then. The sudden break in her voice,
the change in her face, the shadowing of the blue eyes--these were
eloquent.

"Oh, it's horrible--this need of war!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he replied, simply. "But maybe your brother will not be called."

"Called! Why, he refused to wait for the draft! He went and enlisted.
Dad patted him on the back.... If anything happens to him it'll kill my