Joy in the Morning by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
page 8 of 204 (03%)
page 8 of 204 (03%)
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that charge, for the boys--(_Laughs_.) Why, they're all dead. And
me--I'm dying, in a ditch. Twenty years old. Done out of sixty years by--by the silly war. What's it for? Mother, what's it about? I'm ill a bit. I can't think what good it is. Slaughtering boys--all the nations' boys--honest, hard-working boys mostly. Junk. Fine chaps an hour ago. What's the good? I'm dying--for the flag. But--what's the good? It'll go on--wars. Again. Peace sometimes, but nothing gained. And all of us--dead. Cheated out of our lives. Wouldn't the world have done as well if this long ditch of good fellows had been let live? Mother? _The Boy's Dream of His Mother_. (_Seems to speak_.) My very dearest--no. It takes this great burnt-offering to free the world. The world will be free. This is the crisis of humanity; you are bending the lever that lifts the race. Be glad, dearest life of the world, to be part of that glory. Think back to your school-days, to a sentence you learned. Lincoln spoke it. "These dead shall not have died in vain, and government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." _The Boy_. (_Whispers_.) I remember. It's good. "Shall not have died in vain"--"The people--shall not perish"--where's your hand, mother? It's taps for me. The lights are going out. Come with me--mother. (_Dies_.) SECOND ACT _The scene it the same trench one hundred years later, in the year 2018. |
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