ming back to us now, faster and faster. They were tales to
shock me. But they were tales, too, to whet the courage and sharpen
the steel of every man who could fight and meant to go.

It was John's turn to go. So it was he felt. And so it was his mother
and I bid him farewell, there at Bedford. We did not know whether we
would ever see him again, the bonnie laddie! We had to bid him good-by,
lest it be our last chance. For in Britain we knew, by then, what were
the chances they took, those boys of ours who went out.

"Good-by, son--good luck!"

"Good-by, Dad. See you when I get leave!"

That was all. We were not allowed to know more than that he was
ordered to France. Whereabouts in the long trench line he would be
sent we were not told. "Somewhere in France." That phrase, that had
been dinned so often into our ears, had a meaning for us now.

And now, indeed, our days and nights were anxious ones. The war was
in our house as it had never been before. I could think of nothing
but my boy. And yet, all the time I had to go on. I had to carry on,
as John was always bidding his men do. I had to appear daily before
my audiences, and laugh and sing, that I might make them laugh, and
so be better able to do their part.

They had made me understand, my friends, by that time, that it was
really right for me to carry on with my own work. I had not thought
so at first. I had felt that it was wrong for me to be singing at
such a time. But they showed me that I was influencing thousands to
do their duty, in one way or another, and that I was helping to keep
up the spirit of Britain, too.

"Never forget the part that plays, Harry," my friends told me.
"That's the thing the Hun can't understand. He thought the British
would be poor fighters because they went into action with a laugh.
But that's the thing that makes them invincible. You've your part to
do in keeping up that spirit."

So I went on but it was with a heavy heart, oftentimes. John's
letters were not what made my heart heavy. There was good cheer in
everyone of them. He told us as much as the censor's rules would let
him of the front, and of conditions as he found them. They were still
bad--cruelly bad. But there was no word of complaint from John.

The Germans still had the best of us in guns in those days, although
we were beginning to catch up with them. And they knew more about
making themselves comfortable in the trenches than did our boys. No
wonder! They s