Alice gave her back the card. She had held on to the woman's hand
all the time, and now she squeezed the hand, and held it against
her face. But she could not say a word because she was crying so.
The soldier's mother took the card again and she pushed Alice away,
but it was not an unkind push, and she went in and shut the door;
and as Alice and Oswald went down the road Oswald looked back, and
one of the windows of the cottage had a white blind. Afterwards
the other windows had too. There were no blinds really to the
cottage. It was aprons and things she had pinned up.

Alice cried most of the morning, and so did the other girls. We
wanted to do something for the soldier's mother, but you can do
nothing when people's sons are shot. It is the most dreadful thing
to want to do something for people who are unhappy, and not to know
what to do.

It was Noel who thought of what we COIULD do at last.

He said, 'I suppose they don't put up tombstones to soldiers when
they die in war. But there--I mean Oswald said, 'Of course not.'

Noel said, 'I daresay you'll think it's silly, but I don't care.
Don't you think she'd like it, if we put one up to HIM? Not in the
churchyard, of course, because we shouldn't be let, but in our
garden, just where it joins on to the churchyard?'

And we all thought it was a first-rate idea.

This is what we meant to put on the tombstone: