lled with the humor and the
strangeness of her situation that tired as she was she could not sleep
for a long time.

The house settled slowly to quiet. The proprietor and his wife talked
comfortably about the duties of the next day, called some directions to
the two boys in the puppy tent, soothed their mosquito bites with a
lotion and got them another blanket. The woman who helped in the kitchen
complained about not having enough supplies for morning, and that
contingency was arranged for, all in a patient, earnest way and in the
same tone in which they talked about the meetings. They discussed their
own boy, evidently the brother of the small boys, who had apparently just
sailed for France as a soldier a few days before, and whom the wife had
gone to New York to see off, and they commended him to their Christ in
little low sentences of reassurance to each other. Ruth could not help
but hear much that was said, for the rooms were all open to sounds, and
these good people apparently had nothing to hide. They spoke as if all
their household were one great family, equally interested in one another,
equally suffering and patient in the necessities of this awful war.

In another tiny room the Y.M.C.A. man who had been the last to come in
talked in low tones with his wife, telling her in tender, loving tones
what to do about a number of things after he was gone.

In a room quite near there were soft sounds as of suppressed weeping.
Something made Ruth sure it was the mother who had been spoken of earlier
in the evening as having come all the way from Texas and arrived too late
to bid her boy good-bye.

Now and again the sound of a troop train stirred her heart to untold
depths. There is something so weird and sorrowful about its going, as if
the very engine sympathized, screaming its sorrow through the night. Ruth
felt she never would forget that sound. Out there in the dark Cameron
might be even then slipping past them out into the great future. She
wished she could dare ask that sweet faced woman, or that dear little boy
to pray for _him_. Maybe she would next day.

The two officer's wives seemed to sit up in bed and watch the train. They
had discovered a flash light, and were counting the signals, and quite
excited. Ruth's heart ached for them. It was a peculiarity of this trip
that she found her heart going out to others so much more than it had
ever gone before. She was not thinking of her own pain, although she kne