t. I'll be a dandy soldier, won't I?"

He laughed and took the little woman in his arms. When, some moments
later, he held the white-capped mother at arms' length and smiled into
her face neither knew if the wet lashes were caused by laughter or
tears.

"Some soldier you'll make," she said as she looked at him, tall, broad
of shoulder, straight of spine. "Some soldier or sailor you'll make!"

CHAPTER XXIX

PREPARATIONS

THE days following the death of Caleb Warner were days of anxiety to
other inhabitants of the little town who, like David, had purchased
stock with glorious visions of sudden gain. In a short time the list of
Warner's unfortunate investors was known and they were accorded various
degrees of sympathy, rebuke or ridicule. The thing that hurt David was
not so much the knowledge that some were speaking of him in condemnation
or pity as the fact that he merited the condemnation.

But he had neither time nor inclination for self-pity. His country was
calling for his services and he knew his duty was to offer himself. He
could not conscientiously say his mother had urgent need of him for he
knew that the little farm would supply enough for her maintenance.

Phares Eby, although a preacher among a sect who, as a sect, could not
sanction the bearing of arms, accepted the decision of his cousin with
no show of disapproval. "I don't believe in wars," he said gravely, "but
there seems to be no other way this time. One of the Eby family should
go. I'll be glad to keep up your farm and help look after your mother
while you are gone. The most I can do here will be less than you are
going to do, but I'll raise the best crops I can and help in the food
end of it."

"You'll do your part here, Phares, and it will count. You're a bona-fide
farmer. You'll have our little place a record farm when I get back.
You're a brick, Phares!" For the first time in months he felt a genuine
affection for his preacher cousin. Preaching, prosaic Phares, how kind
he was!

Lancaster County measured up to its fair standard in those first trying
days of recruit gathering. The sons of the nation answered when she
called. Pennsylvania Dutch, hundreds of them, rallied round the flag and
proved beyond a doubt that the real Pennsylvania Dutch are not
German-American, but loyal, four-square Americans who are keeping the
faith. Two hundred years ago the ancestors of the present Pennsylvania
Dutch came to this country to escape tyra