roclaimed to the world the end of one era and
the beginning of another. Germany announced to the rulers of the Eastern
Hemisphere that she intended to dominate not merely the land but the
seas, and in my quiet hotel in a Colorado college town this proclamation
found amazed readers. I, for one, could not believe it--even after my
return to Chicago in August, while the papers were shouting "War! War!"
I remained unconvinced. Germany's program seemed monstrous, impossible.

The children and their mother arrived two days later and to Zulime I
said "Father is patiently waiting for us and in the present state of
things West Salem seems a haven, of rest. We must go to him at once."
She was willing and on August six, two days after England declared war,
the old soldier met us, looking thin and white but so happy in our
coming that his health seemed miraculously restored.

With joyous outcry the children sprang to his embrace and Zulime kissed
him with such sincerity of regard that he gave her a convulsive hug.
"Oh, but I'm glad to see you!" he exclaimed while tears of joy glistened
on his cheeks.

"Well, Father, what do you think about the European situation?" I asked.

"I don't know what to think," he gravely answered. "It starts in like a
big war, the biggest the world has ever seen. If you can believe what
the papers say, the Germans have decided to eat up France."

Although physically weaker, he was mentally alert and read his _Tribune_
with a kind of religious zeal. The vastness of the German armies, the
enormous weight and power of their cannons, and especially the
tremendous problem of their commissariat staggered his imagination. "I
don't see how they are going to maintain all those troops," he repeated.
"How can they shelter and clothe and feed three million men?"

To him, one of Sherman's soldiers, who had lived for days on parched
corn stolen from the feedboxes of the mules, the description of wheeled
ovens, and hot soup wagons appeared mere fiction. Although appalled by
the rush of the Prussian line, he was confident that the Allies would
check the invasion. Sharply resenting the half-veiled pro-Germanism of
some of his neighbors, he declared hotly: "They claim to be loyal to
America, but they are hoping the Kaiser will win. I will not trade with
such men."

How far away it all seemed on those lovely nights when with my daughters
beside me I lay on their broad bed out on the upper porch and heard the
crickets