really right for me to carry on with my own work. I had not thought
so at first. I had felt that it was wrong for me to be singing at
such a time. But they showed me that I was influencing thousands to
do their duty, in one way or another, and that I was helping to keep
up the spirit of Britain, too.

"Never forget the part that plays, Harry," my friends told me.
"That's the thing the Hun can't understand. He thought the British
would be poor fighters because they went into action with a laugh.
But that's the thing that makes them invincible. You've your part to
do in keeping up that spirit."

So I went on but it was with a heavy heart, oftentimes. John's
letters were not what made my heart heavy. There was good cheer in
everyone of them. He told us as much as the censor's rules would let
him of the front, and of conditions as he found them. They were still
bad--cruelly bad. But there was no word of complaint from John.

The Germans still had the best of us in guns in those days, although
we were beginning to catch up with them. And they knew more about
making themselves comfortable in the trenches than did our boys. No
wonder! They spent years of planning and making ready for this war.
And it has not taken us so long, all things considered, to catch up
with them.

John's letters were cheery and they came regularly, too, for a time.
But I suppose it was because they left out so much, because there was
so great a part of my boy's life that was hidden from me, that I
found myself thinking more and more of John as a wee bairn and as a
lad growing up.