There was a loud burst of applause here, but Miss Wheatly sat with a
heavy frown on her face.

"Wasn't that a perfectly wonderful speech?" the secretary whispered to
her when the speaker had finished with a ringing verse of poetry all
about sacrifice and duty.

"It is all the same old bunk," Miss Wheatly said bitterly; "I often
wonder how they can speak so long and not make one practical
suggestion. Wouldn't you like to help win the war? That sounds so
foolish--of course we would like to win the war. It is like the
old-fashioned evangelists who used to say, 'All who would like to go
to heaven will please stand up.' Everybody stood, naturally."

While they were whispering, they missed the announcement that the
president was making, which was that there was a young girl from the
North Country who had come to the meeting and wished to say a few
words. There was a deep, waiting silence, and then a small voice began
to speak. It was Miss Polly Rogowski from the Abilene Valley District.

There was no fear in Polly's heart--she was not afraid of anything.
Not being a lady, of course, and having no reputation to sustain, and
being possessed with one thought, and complete master of it, her
speech had true eloquence. She was so small that the women at the back
of the room had to stand up to see her.

"I live at Abilene Valley and there are lots of us. I am fourteen
years old and Mary is twelve, and Annie is eleven, and Mike is ten,
and Peter is nine, and Ivan is seven, and Olga is six, and that is all
we have old enough to go to school; but there are lots more of other
children in our neighborhood, but our teacher has gone away to the war
and we cannot get another one, for lady-teachers are all too scared,
but I don't think they would be if they would only come, for we will
chop the wood, and one of us will stay at night and sleep on the
floor, and we will light the fires and get the breakfast, and we bring
eggs and cream and everything like that, and we could give the teacher
a cat and a dog; and the girl that had done the best work all week
always got to scrub the floor when our last teacher was there; and we
had a nice garden--and flowers, and now there is not anything, and the
small children are forgetting what Mr. Ellis taught them; for our
school has been closed all last summer, and sometimes Peter and Ivan
and the other little boys go over to the cabin and look in at the
windows, and it is all so quiet and sad--they