ack and also, alas,
the casualty lists on the inside pages long and longer. Then October.
The armistice was signed. It was the end. The Allied world went wild,
cheered, danced, celebrated. Then it sat back, thinking, thanking God,
solemnly trying to realize that the killing days, the frightful days of
waiting and awful anxiety, were over.

And early in November another telegram came to the office of Z. Snow and
Co. This time it came, not from the War Department direct, but from the
Boston headquarters of the American Red Cross.

And this time, just as on the day when the other fateful telegram came,
Laban Keeler was the first of the office regulars to learn its contents.
Ben Kelley himself brought this message, just as he had brought that
telling of Albert Speranza's death. And the usually stolid Ben was
greatly excited. He strode straight from the door to the bookkeeper's
desk.

"Is the old man in, Labe?" he whispered, jerking his head toward the
private office, the door of which happened to be shut.

Laban looked at him over his spectacles. "Cap'n Lote, you mean?" he
asked. "Yes, he's in. But he don't want to be disturbed--no, no. Goin'
to write a couple of important letters, he said. Important ones. . . .
Um-hm. What is it, Ben? Anything I can do for you?"

Kelley did not answer that question. Instead he took a telegram from his
pocket.

"Read it, Labe," he whispered. "Read it. It's the darndest
news--the--the darnedest good news ever you heard in your life. It don't
seem as if it could he, but, by time, I guess 'tis. Anyhow, it's from
the Red Cross folks and they'd ought to know."

Laban stared at the telegram. It was not in the usual envelope; Kelley
had been too anxious to bring it to its destination to bother with an
envelope.

"Read it," commanded the operator again. "See if you think Cap'n Lote
ought to have it broke easy to him or--or what? Read it, I tell you.
Lord sakes, it's no secret! I hollered it right out loud when it come in
over the wire and the gang at the depot heard it. They know it and it'll
be all over town in ten minutes. READ IT."

Keeler read the telegram. His florid cheeks turned pale.

"Good Lord above!" he exclaimed, under his breath.

"Eh? I bet you! Shall I take it to the cap'n? Eh? What do you think?"

"Wait. . . . Wait . . . I--I--My soul! My soul! Why . . . It's--it's
true. . . . And Rachel always said . . . Why, she was right . . .
I . . ."

From without came the soun