of Kurt's life. His father had whipped him, too, for the
adventure.

How strangely vivid and thought-compelling were these ordinary adjuncts
to his life there on the farm. It was only upon giving them up that he
discovered their real meaning. The hills of bare fallow and of yellow
slope, the old barn with its horses, swallows, mice, and odorous loft,
the cows and chickens--these appeared to Kurt, in the illuminating light
of farewell, in their true relation to him. For they, and the labor of
them, had made him what he was.

Slowly he went back to the old house and climbed the stairs. Only three
rooms were there up-stairs, and one of these, his mother's, had not been
opened for a long time. It seemed just the same as when he used to go to
her with his stubbed toes and his troubles. She had died in that room.
And now he was a man, going out to fight for his country. How strange!
Why? In his mother's room he could not answer that puzzling question. It
stung him, and with a last look, a good-by, and a word of prayer on his
lips, he turned to his own little room.

He entered and sat down on the bed. It was small, with the slope of the
roof running down so low that he had learned to stoop when close to the
wall. There was no ceiling. Bare yellow rafters and dark old shingles
showed. He could see light through more than one little hole. The window
was small, low, and without glass. How many times he had sat there,
leaning out in the hot dusk of summer nights, dreaming dreams that were
never to come true. Alas for the hopes and illusions of boyhood! So long
as he could remember, this room was most closely associated with his
actions and his thoughts. It was a part of him. He almost took it into
his confidence as if it were human. Never had he become what he had
dared to dream he would, yet, somehow, at that moment he was not
ashamed. It struck him then what few belongings he really had. But he
had been taught to get along with little.

Living in that room was over for him. He was filled with unutterable
sadness. Yet he would not have had it any different. Bigger, and
selfless things called to him. He was bidding farewell to his youth and
all that it related to. A solemn procession of beautiful memories passed
through his mind, born of the nights there in that room of his boyhood,
with the wind at the eaves and the rain pattering on the shingles. What
strong and vivid pictures! No grief, no pain, no war could rob him of
this