gton, Paul Jones, Perry, Farragut, Lee; how Dewey had said, "You
may fire now, Gridley, if you are ready"; how Clark had brought the
_Oregon_ around the continent; how Scott had gone alone among angry
Indians. She had taught them such names, names which will not die while
America lives. It was she who had told the little lads, listening
wide-eyed, that as these men had held life lightly for the glory of
America, so her sons, if need came, must be ready to offer their lives
for their country. She remembered how Brock, his round face suddenly
scarlet, had stammered out:

"I _am_ ready, Mummy. I'd die this minute for--for America. Wouldn't
you, Hughie?"

And young Hugh, a slim, blond angel of a boy, of curly, golden hair and
unexpected answers, had ducked beneath the hero, upsetting him into a
hedge to his infinite anger. "I wouldn't die right now, Brocky," said
Hugh. "There's going to be chocolate cake for lunch."

One could never count on Hugh's ways of doing things, but Brock was a
stone wall of reliability. She smiled, thinking of his youth and beauty
and entire boyishness, to think yet of the saying from the Bible which
always suggested Brock, "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind
is stayed on Thee." It was so with the lad; through the gay heart and
eager interest in life pulsed an atmosphere of deep religiousness. He
was always "in perfect peace," and his mother, less balanced, had stayed
her mind on that quiet and right young mind from its very babyhood. The
lad had seen his responsibilities and lifted them all his life. It came
to her how, when her own mother, very dear to Brock, had died, she had
not let the lads go with her to the house of death for fear of saddening
their youth, and how, when she and their father came home from the hard,
terrible business of the funeral, they met little Hugh on the drive,
rapturous at seeing them again, rather absorbed in his new dog. But
Brock, then fourteen, was in the house alone, quiet, his fresh, dear
face red with tears, and a black necktie of his father's, too large for
him, tied under his collar. Of all the memories of her boys, that
grotesque black tie was the most poignant and most precious. It said
much. It said: "I also, O, my mother, am of my people. I have a right to
their sorrows as well as to their joys, and if you do not give me my
place in trouble, I shall do what I can alone, being but a boy. I shall
give up play, and I shall wear mourning as I ca