in Algonquin. What if they got off without him? What if the war
should end before he got away? He dashed into the stable and flung the
saddle upon his horse, fastening it with swift, feverish jerks, while
the sympathetic animal watched him with eager eyes, quivering to be
away.

"Hooray, Polly!" he shouted as he swung over her back, "Hooray for
Berlin!"

He went thundering down the lane, roaring good-bye to the two, still
standing, in the field, gazing open-mouthed. Then he went whirling
down the road in a cloud of dust, waving his cap and shouting a joyous
farewell to everything and everybody along the way.

Joanna was at her gate looking up the street to see which of the Martin
children had carried off her watering can, and Marmaduke had stopped to
make love to her on his way home to dinner. They were standing
laughing and joking when the wild horseman came thundering down the
hill.

Trooper shot past them, yelling something that neither understood and
before they could recover from their amazement he had stormed past and
was up over the hill with only the sharp rap of his horse's hoofs to
tell that it had not all been a vision.

Joanna looked at Marmaduke in real concern. He stood for a moment
staring at the cloud of dust on the hill top, and then he suddenly
slapped his knee.

"He's off to the war!" he shouted. "I bet Trooper's off to enlist.
He's the very boy to do it. The Woman stopped here on her way home and
said there was a Canadian Army to be raised and they were recruitin' in
Algonquin last night. Yes, sir," he ended up heavily. "I just bet you
that's what he's up to." He leaned against the fence and suddenly
looked old and weary.

Joanna's handsome face had turned white. She turned and without a word
walked into the house steady and erect. And it takes some courage and
resolution to walk so when your lover has just gone shouting to the
wars without so much as a good-bye wave of the hand, because of the
very joy of going!

The next day Mitty was due for a day of fun at the Lindsays but she did
not appear, and Christina ran down as soon as she could get away,
apprehensive that Granny was really ill again. She found the tidy
little house in great disorder, with Mitty sitting on the edge of
Granny's bed, her face swollen with tears, while Granny sat up in bed
rocking to and fro and bewailing her fate for a poor unfortunate buddy
who should'a' died years agone.

"What has happened?" c