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