"He--he was--just like--" The slight form was shaking and the words forced
themselves from between her chattering teeth, "what my Willie boy would
have been now--if he hadn't--run away. My little son! My baby!"




CHAPTER IV

MRS. SANDERSON'S STORY


Tears were not only in her eyes now, but running down her wrinkled old
face, and the girls, with the tears of real pity in their own eyes,
crowded closer about her.

"Would it help," Betty suggested gently, "if you told us about it?"

The old lady drew her gaze from the window and let it rest on the sweet,
sympathetic young face, and she nodded slowly.

"I guess maybe it would," she agreed, taking a handkerchief from the
pocket in her dress and wiping her eyes. "You see, I never have told
anybody for years and years, and if it hadn't been for this war I suppose
I should have gone right on not telling anybody for the rest of my life.
Of course the Yates and Baldwins and all the folks that lived around us
knew it, so there was no use telling them--" Her voice trailed off and her
eyes sought the window with its vista of parade ground and low, roughly
built barracks buildings.