hat the
stranger was dressed in the regulation khaki of Uncle Sam, with the
U.S. in block letters at the vent of the collar and two stripes on
the left sleeve.

"Broke down?" the boy queried, dropping his plow-handles.

The corporal grunted and continued to potter with the machine.

"You in the army?" the boy continued, leaning on the fence.

"You bet!" assented the soldier. Then, looking up and taking in the
big, raw-boned physique of the youngster, "Ever think of joinin'?"

"Can't say's I did."

"Got any friends in the army?"

"Nope."

"Fine life." The motor cycle was attracting little of the recruiting
officer's attention now, for he was a recruiting officer, and
engaged in one of the most practical phases of his work.

"Them soldiers have a pretty easy life, don't they?" Evidently the
boy was becoming interested.

The recruiting officer laid down his tools, pulled out a pipe, and
sat down comfortably under a small sycamore tree at the roadside.

"Not so very easy," he replied, "but interesting and exciting." He
paused for a minute to scrutinize the prospective recruit more
closely. To his experienced eye the boy appeared desirable. Slouchy,
dirty, and lazy-looking, perhaps; but there were nevertheless good
muscles and a strong body under those ragged overalls. The corporal
launched into his story.

For twenty minutes the boy listened open-mouthed to the stories of
post life, where baseball, football, and boxing divided the time
with drilling; of mess-halls where a fellow could eat all he wanted
to, free; of good-fellowship and fraternal pride in the
organization; of the pleasant evenings in the amusement rooms in
quarters. And then of the life of the big world, of which the boy
had only dreamed; of the Western plains, of Texas, the snowy ridges
of the great Rockies, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, the
Philippines, Hawaii, the strange glamour of the tropics, the great
wildernesses of the frozen North.

"It seems 'most like as I'd like to join," was the timid venture.

"What's your name?"

"Steve Bishop."

"All right, Steve, come in and see me the next time you're in town,"
said the corporal, rising. "We'll talk it over."

And, mounting his motor cycle, he was gone down the road in a whirl
of red dust. Nor did the farmer boy think to