ating and pushing. And a
voice--a choked, high little voice--cried, "Let me by! I can't see! You
man, you! You big fat man! My boy's going by--to war--and I can't see!
Let me by!"

Jo scrooged around, still keeping his place. He looked down. And
upturned to him in agonised appeal was the face of little Emily. They
stared at each other for what seemed a long, long time. It was really
only the fraction of a second. Then Jo put one great arm firmly around
Emily's waist and swung her around in front of him. His great bulk
protected her. Emily was clinging to his hand. She was breathing
rapidly, as if she had been running. Her eyes were straining up the
street.

"Why, Emily, how in the world!--"

"I ran away. Fred didn't want me to come. He said it would excite me too
much."

"Fred?"

"My husband. He made me promise to say good-bye to Jo at home."

"Jo?"

"Jo's my boy. And he's going to war. So I ran away. I had to see him. I
had to see him go."

She was dry-eyed. Her gaze was straining up the street.

"Why, sure," said Jo. "Of course you want to see him." And then the
crowd gave a great roar. There came over Jo a feeling of weakness. He
was trembling. The boys went marching by.

"There he is," Emily shrilled, above the din. "There be is! There he is!
There he--" And waved a futile little hand. It wasn't so much a wave as
a clutching. A clutching after something beyond her reach.

"Which one? Which one, Emily?"

"The handsome one. The handsome one. There!" Her voice quavered and
died.

Jo put a steady hand on her shoulder. "Point him out," he commanded.
"Show me." And the next instant. "Never mind. I see him."

Somehow, miraculously, he had picked him from among the hundreds. Had
picked him as surely as his own father might have. It was Emily's boy.
He was marching by, rather stiffly. He was nineteen, and fun-loving, and
he had a girl, and he didn't particularly want to go to France and--to
go to France. But more than he had hated going, he had hated not to go.
So he marched by, looking straight ahead, his jaw set so that his chin
stuck out just a little. Emily's boy.

Jo looked at him, and his face flushed purple. His eyes, the hard-boiled
eyes of a Loop-hound, took on the look of a sad old man. And suddenly he
was no longer Jo, the sport; old J. Hertz, the gay dog. He was Jo Hertz,
thirty, in love with life, in love with Emily, and with the stinging
blood of young manhood coursing through his veins.