ver America, lifted up her
heart--the dear things that filled and were her heart--unto the Lord.

And with that she was aware of a recurring unrest. She was aware that
there was something her husband did not say to her about the boys, about
young Hugh. Brock had been hard to hold for nearly two years now, but
his father had thought for reasons, that he should not serve until his
own flag called him. Now it would soon be calling, and Brock would go
instantly. But young Hugh? What did the boy's attitude mean?

"I can't make out Hughie," his father had said to her in March, 1917,
when it was certain that war was coming. "What does this devil-may-care
pose about the war mean?"

And she answered: "Let Hughie work it out, Hugh. He's in trouble in his
mind, but he'll come through. We'll give him time."

"Oh, very well," Hugh the elder had agreed, "but young Americans will
have to take their stand shortly. I couldn't bear it if a son of mine
were a slacker."

She tossed out her hands. "Slacker! Don't dare say it of my boy!"

The hideous word followed her. That night, when she lay in bed and
looked out into the moonlit wood, and saw the pines swaying like giant
fans across a pulsing, pale sky, and listened to the summer wind blowing
through the tall heads of them, again through the peace of it the word
stabbed. A slacker! She set to work to fancy how it would be if Brock
and Hugh both went to war and were both killed. She faced the thought.
Life--years of it--without Brock and Hugh! She registered that steadily
in her mind. Then she painted to herself another picture, Brock and Hugh
not going to war, at home ignominiously safe. Other women's sons
marching out into the danger--men, heroes! Brock and Hugh explaining,
steadily explaining why they had not gone! Brock and Hugh after the war,
mature men, meeting returning soldiers, old friends who had borne the
burden and heat, themselves with no memories of hideous, infinitely
precious days, of hardships, and squalid trench life, and deadly
pain--for America! Brock and Hugh going on through life into old age
ashamed to hold up their heads and look their comrades in the eye! Or
else--it might be--Brock and Hugh lying next year, this year, in
unknown, honored graves in France! Which was worse? And the aching heart
of the woman did not wait to answer. Better a thousand times brave death
than a coward's life. She would choose so if she knew certainly that she
sent them both to deat