OTHER

On the train, nearing Plattsburg.
Friday morning, Sep. 8, 1916.

DEAR MOTHER:--

Though you kissed me good-by with affection, you know there was amusement
in the little smile with which you watched me go. I, a modest citizen,
accustomed to shrink from publicity, was exposed in broad day in a badly
fitting uniform, in color inconspicuous, to be sure, but in pattern
evidently military and aggressive. What a guy I felt myself, and how
every smile or laugh upon the street seemed to mean Me! The way to the
railroad station had never seemed so long, nor so thronged with curious
folk. I felt myself very silly.

Thus it was a relief when I met our good pastor, for I knew at the first
glance of his eye that my errand and my uniform meant to him, as they did
to me, something important. So strong was this comforting sense that I
even forgot what importance he might attach to them.

But fixing me with his eye as I stopped and greeted him (being within
easy hurrying distance of the station) he said in pained surprise: "And
so you are going to Plattsburg?"

Then I remembered that he was an irreconcilable pacifist. Needing no
answer, he went on: "I am sorry to see that the militarist spirit has
seized you too."

Now if anything vexes me, it is to be told that I am a militarist. "Not
that, sir," said I. "War is the last thing that I want."

"Train a man to wield a weapon," he rejoined, "and he will itch to use
it." I think we were both a little sententious because of the approach of
the train. "Your argument is, I suppose, that the country is in danger?"

"Exactly," I replied.

He raised both hands. "Madness! No one will attack us."

I refrained from telling him that with so much at stake I was unwilling
to accept even treaty assurances on that point. He went on. "The whole
world is mad with desire to slay. But I would rather have my son killed
than killing others."

He is proud of his son, but he is prouder of his daughter. Said I, "If
war comes, and we are unprepared for it, you might have not only your son
killed, but your daughter too."

Horrified, he had not yet begun to express himself on the impossibility
of invasion, when the train came. So we parted. To tell the truth, I am
not sorry that he feels so: it is very ideal. And I regret no longer
having my own fine feeling of security. It is only a year or so ago that
I was just s