would have
been all over now." She could say: "My boys? They will do their duty
like other women's boys." But nights, when she crept into bed and the
things she had read of Belgium, of Serbia, came and stood about her, she
knew that hers were the only boys in the world who could not, _could_
not be spared. Brock and Hugh! It seemed as if it would be apparent to
the dullest that Brock and Hugh were different from all others. She
could suffer; she could have gone over there light-hearted and faced any
danger to save _them_. Of course! That was natural! But--Brock and Hugh!
The little heads that had lain in the hollow of her arm; the noisy
little boys who had muddied their white clothes, and broken furniture,
and spilled ink; the tall, beautiful lads who had been her pride and her
everlasting joy, her playmates, her lovers--Brock and Hugh! Why, there
had never been on earth love and friendship in any family close and
unfailing like that of the four.

Night after night, nearer and nearer, the ghosts from Belgium and Serbia
and Poland stood about her bed, and she fought with them as one had
fought with the beasts at Ephesus. Day after day she cheered Brock and
the two Hughs and filled them with fresh patriotism. Of course, she
would not have her own fail in a hair's breadth of eager service to
their flag. Of course! And as she lifted up, for their sakes, her
heart, behold a miracle, for her heart grew high! She began to feel the
words she said. It came to her in very truth that to have the world as
one wanted it was not now the point; the point was a greater goal which
she had never in her happy life even visualized. It began to rise before
her, a distant picture glorious through a mist of suffering, something
built of the sacrifice, and the honor, and the deathless bravery of
millions of soldiers in battle, of millions of mothers at home. The
education of a nation to higher ideals was reaching the quiet backwater
of this one woman's soul. There were lovelier things than life; there
were harder things than death. Service is the measure of living. If the
boys were to compress years of good living into a flame of serving
humanity for six months, who was she, what was life here, that she
should be reluctant? To play the game, for herself and her sons, this
was the one thing worth while. More and more entirely, as the stress of
the strange, hard vision crowded out selfishness, this woman, as
thousands and tens of thousands all o