e seas.

The address was given at the Red Cross rooms, and as Mary listened she
sewed upon a flannel swaddling robe that was later to go to Siberia lest
a new-born babe might perish. At first she listened conscientiously
enough to the speaker--"What our European sisters have done in
agriculture--"

"I do believe at times that it's the women more than the men who make a
country great," she thought as she heard of the women ploughing,
planting, reaping. To Mary's mind each stoical figure glowed with the
light of heroism, and she nodded her head as she worked.

"Just as I've always said," she mused; "there's nothing a man can do that
a woman can't do."

From her chair by the window she chanced to look out at an old circus
poster across the street.

"Now that's funny, too," she thought, her needle suspended; "I never
thought of that before--but even in such things as lion taming and
trapeze performing--where you would think a woman would really be at a
disadvantage--she isn't at all. She's just as good as a man!"

The voice of the speaker broke in upon her thoughts.

"I am now going to tell you," she said, "what the women of Europe are
doing in the factories--"

And oh, how Mary listened, then!

It was a long talk--I cannot begin to give it here--but she drank in
every word, and hungered and thirsted for more.

"There is not an operation in factory, foundry or laboratory," began the
speaker, "where women are not employed--"

As in a dream Mary seemed to see the factory of Spencer & Son. The long
lines of men had vanished, and in their places were women, clear-eyed,
dexterous and happy at escaping from the unpaid drudgery of housework.
"It may come to that, too," she thought, "if we go into war."

"In aeroplane construction," the speaker continued, "where an undetected
flaw in her work might mean an aviator's life, woman is doing the
carpentry work, building the frame work, making the propellers. They are
welding metals, drilling, boring, grinding, milling, even working on the
engines and magnetos--"

A quiver ran up and down Mary's back and her eyes felt wet. "Just what
I've always said," she thought. "Ah, the poor women--"

"They are making telescopes, periscopes, binoculars, cameras--cutting and
grinding the lenses--work so fine that the deviation of a hair's breadth
would cause rejection--some of the lenses as small as a split pea. They
make the metal parts that hold those lenses, assemble them, adjust t