IX

One bright June day Mr. Wheeler parked his car in a line of

motors before the new pressed-brick Court house in Frankfort. The

Court house stood in an open square, surrounded by a grove of

cotton-woods. The lawn was freshly cut, and the flower beds were

blooming. When Mr. Wheeler entered the courtroom upstairs, it was

already half-full of farmers and townspeople, talking in low

tones while the summer flies buzzed in and out of the open

windows. The judge, a one-armed man, with white hair and

side-whiskers, sat at his desk, writing with his left hand. He

was an old settler in Frankfort county, but from his frockcoat

and courtly manners you might have thought he had come from

Kentucky yesterday instead of thirty years ago. He was to hear

this morning a charge of disloyalty brought against two German

farmers. One of the accused was August Yoeder, the Wheelers'

nearest neighbour, and the other was Troilus Oberlies, a rich

German from the northern part of the county.

Oberlies owned a beautiful farm and lived in a big white house

set on a hill, with a fine orchard, rows of beehives, barns,

granaries, and poultry yards. He raised turkeys and

tumbler-pigeons, and many geese and ducks swam about on his

cattleponds. He used to boast that he had six sons, "like our

German Emperor." His neighbours were proud of his place, and

pointed it out to strangers. They told how Oberlies had come to

Frankfort county a poor man, and had made his fortune by his

industry and intelligence. He had twice crossed the ocean to

re-visit his fatherland, and when he returned to his home on the

prairies he brought presents for every one; his lawyer, his

banker, and the merchants with whom he dealt in Frankfort and

Vicount. Each of his neighbours had in his parlour some piece of

woodcarving or weaving, or some ingenious mechanical toy that

Oberlies had picked up in Germany. He was an older man than

Yoeder, wore a short beard that was white and curly, like his

hair, and though he was low in stature, his puffy red face and

full blue eyes, and a certain swagger about his carriage, gave

him a look of importance. He was boastful and quick-tempered, but

until the war broke out in Europe nobody had ever had any trouble

with him. Since then he had constantly found fault and

complained,--everything was better in the Old Country.

Mr. Wheeler had come to town prepared to lend Yoeder a hand if he

needed one. They had worked adjoining fields for thirty years

now. He was surprised that his neighbour had got into trouble. He

was not a blusterer, like Oberlies, but a big, quiet man, with a

serious, large-featured face, and a stern mouth that seldom

opened. His countenance might have been cut out of red sandstone,

it was so heavy and fixed. He and Oberlies sat on two wooden

chairs outside the railing of the judge's desk.

Presently the judge stopped writing and said he would hear the

charges against Troilus Oberlies. Several neighbours took the

stand in succession; their complaints were confused and almost

humorous. Oberlies had said the United States would be licked,

and that would be a good thing; America was a great country, but

it was run by fools, and to be governed by Germany was the best

thing that could happen to it. The witness went on to say that

since Oberlies had made his money in this country--

Here the judge interrupted him. "Please confine yourself to

statements which you consider disloyal, made in your presence by

the defendant." While the witness proceeded, the judge took off

his glasses and laid them on the desk and began to polish the

lenses with a silk handkerchief, trying them, and rubbing them

again, as if he desired to see clearly.

A second witness had heard Oberlies say he hoped the German

submarines would sink a few troopships; that would frighten the

Americans and teach them to stay at home and mind their own

business. A third complained that on Sunday afternoons the old

man sat on his front porch and played Die Wacht am Rhein on a

slide-trombone, to the great annoyance of his neighbours. Here

Nat Wheeler slapped his knee with a loud guffaw, and a titter ran

through the courtroom. The defendant's puffy red cheeks seemed

fashioned by his Maker to give voice to that piercing instrument.

When asked if he had anything to say to these charges, the old

man rose, threw back his shoulders, and cast a defiant glance at

the courtroom. "You may take my property and imprison me, but I

explain nothing, and I take back nothing," he declared in a loud

voice.

The judge regarded his inkwell with a smile. "You mistake the

nature of this occasion, Mr. Oberlies. You are not asked to

recant. You are merely asked to desist from further disloyal

utterances, as much for your own protection and comfort as from

consideration for the feelings of your neighbours. I will now

hear the charges against Mr. Yoeder."

Mr. Yoeder, a witness declared, had said he hoped the United

States would go to Hell, now that it had been bought over by

England. When the witness had remarked to him that if the Kaiser

were shot it would end the war, Yoeder replied that charity

begins at home, and he wished somebody would put a bullet in the

President.

When he was called upon, Yoeder rose and stood like a rock before

the judge. "I have nothing to say. The charges are true. I

thought this was a country where a man could speak his mind."

"Yes, a man can speak his mind, but even here he must take the

consequences. Sit down, please." The judge leaned back in his

chair, and looking at the two men in front of him, began with

deliberation: "Mr. Oberlies, and Mr. Yoeder, you both know, and

your friends and neighbours know, why you are here. You have not

recognized the element of appropriateness, which must be regarded

in nearly all the transactions of life; many of our civil laws

are founded upon it. You have allowed a sentiment, noble in

itself, to carry you away and lead you to make extravagant

statements which I am confident neither of you mean. No man can

demand that you cease from loving the country of your birth; but

while you enjoy the benefits of this country, you should not

defame its government to extol another. You both admit to

utterances which I can only adjudge disloyal. I shall fine you

each three hundred dollars; a very light fine under the

circumstances. If I should have occasion to fix a penalty a

second time, it will be much more severe."

After the case was concluded, Mr. Wheeler joined his neighbour at

the door and they went downstairs together.

"Well, what do you hear from Claude?" Mr. Yoeder asked.

"He's still at Fort R--. He expects to get home on leave before

he sails. Gus, you'll have to lend me one of your boys to

cultivate my corn. The weeds are getting away from me."

"Yes, you can have any of my boys,--till the draft gets 'em,"

said Yoeder sourly.

"I wouldn't worry about it. A little military training is good

for a boy. You fellows know that." Mr. Wheeler winked, and

Yoeder's grim mouth twitched at one corner.

That evening at supper Mr. Wheeler gave his wife a full account

of the court hearing, so that she could write it to Claude. Mrs.

Wheeler, always more a school-teacher than a housekeeper, wrote a

rapid, easy hand, and her long letters to Claude reported all the

neighbourhood doings. Mr. Wheeler furnished much of the material

for them. Like many long-married men he had fallen into the way

of withholding neighbourhood news from his wife. But since Claude

went away he reported to her everything in which he thought the

boy would be interested. As she laconically said in one of her

letters:

"Your father talks a great deal more at home than formerly, and

sometimes I think he is trying to take your place."

X

On the first day of July Claude Wheeler found himself in the fast

train from Omaha, going home for a week's leave. The uniform was

still an unfamiliar sight in July, 1917. The first draft was not

yet called, and the boys who had rushed off and enlisted were in

training camps far away. Therefore a redheaded young man with

long straight legs in puttees, and broad, energetic,

responsible-looking shoulders in close-fitting khaki, made a

conspicuous figure among the passengers. Little boys and young

girls peered at him over the tops of seats, men stopped in the

aisle to talk to him, old ladies put on their glasses and studied

his clothes, his bulky canvas hold-all, and even the book he kept

opening and forgetting to read.

The country that rushed by him on each side of the track was more

interesting to his trained eye than the pages of any book. He was

glad to be going through it at harvest,--the season when it is

most itself. He noted that there was more corn than usual,--much

of the winter wheat had been weather killed, and the fields were

ploughed up in the spring and replanted in maize. The pastures

were already burned brown, the alfalfa was coming green again

after its first cutting. Binders and harvesters were abroad in

the wheat and oats, gathering the soft-breathing billows of grain

into wide, subduing arms. When the train slowed down for a

trestle in a wheat field, harvesters in blue shirts and overalls

and wide straw hats stopped working to wave at the passengers.

Claude turned to the old man in the opposite seat. "When I see

those fellows, I feel as if I'd wakened up in the wrong clothes."

His neighbour looked pleased and smiled. "That the kind of

uniform you're accustomed to?"

"I surely never wore anything else in the month of July," Claude

admitted. "When I find myself riding along in a train, in the

middle of harvest, trying to learn French verbs, then I know the

world is turned upside down, for a fact!"

The old man pressed a cigar upon him and began to question him.

Like the hero of the Odyssey upon his homeward journey, Claude

had often to tell what his country was, and who were the parents

that begot him. He was constantly interrupted in his perusal of a

French phrase-book (made up of sentences chosen for their

usefulness to soldiers,--such as; "Non, jamais je ne regarde les

femmes") by the questions of curious strangers. Presently he

gathered up his luggage, shook hands with his neighbour, and put

on his hat--the same old Stetson, with a gold cord and two hard

tassels added to its conical severity. "I get off at this station

and wait for the freight that goes down to Frankfort; the

cotton-tail, we call it."

The old man wished him a pleasant visit home, and the best of

luck in days to come. Every one in the car smiled at him as he

stepped down to the platform with his suitcase in one hand and

his canvas bag in the other. His old friend, Mrs. Voigt, the

German woman, stood out in front of her restaurant, ringing her

bell to announce that dinner was ready for travellers. A crowd of

young boys stood about her on the sidewalk, laughing and shouting

in disagreeable, jeering tones. As Claude approached, one of them

snatched the bell from her hand, ran off across the tracks with

it, and plunged into a cornfield. The other boys followed, and

one of them shouted, "Don't go in there to eat, soldier. She's a

German spy, and she'll put ground glass in your dinner!"

Claude swept into the lunch room and threw his bags on the floor.

"What's the matter, Mrs. Voigt? Can I do anything for you?"

She was sitting on one of her own stools, crying piteously, her

false frizzes awry. Looking up, she gave a little screech of

recognition. "Oh, I tank Gott it was you, and no more trouble

coming! You know I ain't no spy nor nodding, like what dem boys

say. Dem young fellers is dreadful rough mit me. I sell dem candy

since dey was babies, an' now dey turn on me like dis.

Hindenburg, dey calls me, and Kaiser Bill!" She began to cry

again, twisting her stumpy little fingers as if she would tear

them off.

"Give me some dinner, ma'am, and then I'll go and settle with

that gang. I've been away for a long time, and it seemed like

getting home when I got off the train and saw your squaw vines

running over the porch like they used to."

"Ya? You remember dat?" she wiped her eyes. "I got a pot-pie

today, and green peas, chust a few, out of my own garden."

"Bring them along, please. We don't get anything but canned stuff

in camp."

Some railroad men came in for lunch. Mrs. Voigt beckoned Claude

off to the end of the counter, where, after she had served her

customers, she sat down and talked to him, in whispers.

"My, you look good in dem clothes," she said patting his sleeve.

"I can remember some wars, too; when we got back dem provinces

what Napoleon took away from us, Alsace and Lorraine. Dem boys is

passed de word to come and put tar on me some night, and I am

skeered to go in my bet. I chust wrap in a quilt and sit in my

old chair."

"Don't pay any attention to them. You don't have trouble with the

business people here, do you?"

"No-o, not troubles, exactly." She hesitated, then leaned

impulsively across the counter and spoke in his ear. "But it

ain't all so bad in de Old Country like what dey say. De poor

people ain't slaves, and dey ain't ground down like what dey say

here. Always de forester let de poor folks come into de wood and

carry off de limbs dat fall, and de dead trees. Und if de rich

farmer have maybe a liddle more manure dan he need, he let de

poor man come and take some for his land. De poor folks don't git

such wages like here, but dey lives chust as comfortable. Und dem

wooden shoes, what dey makes such fun of, is cleaner dan what

leather is, to go round in de mud and manure. Dey don't git so

wet and dey don't stink so."

Claude could see that her heart was bursting with homesickness,

full of tender memories of the far-away time and land of her

youth. She had never talked to him of these things before, but

now she poured out a flood of confidences about the big dairy

farm on which she had worked as a girl; how she took care of nine

cows, and how the cows, though small, were very strong,--drew a

plough all day and yet gave as much milk at night as if they had

been browsing in a pasture! The country people never had to spend

money for doctors, but cured all diseases with roots and herbs,

and when the old folks had the rheumatism they took "one of dem

liddle jenny-pigs" to bed with them, and the guinea-pig drew out

all the pain.

Claude would have liked to listen longer, but he wanted to find

the old woman's tormentors before his train came in. Leaving his

bags with her, he crossed the railroad tracks, guided by an

occasional teasing tinkle of the bell in the cornfield. Presently

he came upon the gang, a dozen or more, lying in a shallow draw

that ran from the edge of the field out into an open pasture. He

stood on the edge of the bank and looked down at them, while he

slowly cut off the end of a cigar and lit it. The boys grinned at

him, trying to appear indifferent and at ease.

"Looking for any one, soldier?" asked the one with the bell.

"Yes, I am. I'm looking for that bell. You'll have to take it

back where it belongs. You every one of you know there's no harm

in that old woman."

"She's a German, and we're fighting the Germans, ain't we?"

"I don't think you'll ever fight any. You'd last about ten

minutes in the American army. You're not our kind. There's only

one army in the world that wants men who'll bully old women. You

might get a job with them."

The boys giggled. Claude beckoned impatiently. "Come along with

that bell, kid."

The boy rose slowly and climbed the bank out of the gully. As

they tramped back through the cornfield, Claude turned to him

abruptly. "See here, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Oh, I don't know about that!" the boy replied airily, tossing

the bell up like a ball and catching it.

"Well, you ought to be. I didn't expect to see anything of this

kind until I got to the front. I'll be back here in a week, and

I'll make it hot for anybody that's been bothering her." Claude's

train was pulling in, and he ran for his baggage. Once seated in

the "cotton-tail," he began going down into his own country,

where he knew every farm he passed,--knew the land even when he

did not know the owner, what sort of crops it yielded, and about

how much it was worth. He did not recognize these farms with the

pleasure he had anticipated, because he was so angry about the

indignities Mrs. Voigt had suffered. He was still burning with

the first ardour of the enlisted man. He believed that he was

going abroad with an expeditionary force that would make war

without rage, with uncompromising generosity and chivalry.

Most of his friends at camp shared his Quixotic ideas. They had

come together from farms and shops and mills and mines, boys from

college and boys from tough joints in big cities; sheepherders,

street car drivers, plumbers' assistants, billiard markers.

Claude had seen hundreds of them when they first came in; "show

men" in cheap, loud sport suits, ranch boys in knitted

waistcoats, machinists with the grease still on their fingers,

farm-hands like Dan, in their one Sunday coat. Some of them

carried paper suitcases tied up with rope, some brought all they

had in a blue handkerchief. But they all came to give and not to

ask, and what they offered was just themselves; their big red

hands, their strong backs, the steady, honest, modest look in

their eyes. Sometimes, when he had helped the medical examiner,

Claude had noticed the anxious expression in the faces of the

long lines of waiting men. They seemed to say, "If I'm good

enough, take me. I'll stay by." He found them like that to work

with; serviceable, good-natured, and eager to learn. If they

talked about the war, or the enemy they were getting ready to

fight, it was usually in a facetious tone; they were going to

"can the Kaiser," or to make the Crown Prince work for a living.

Claude, loved the men he trained with,--wouldn't choose to live

in any better company.

The freight train swung into the river valley that meant

home,--the place the mind always came back to, after its farthest

quest. Rapidly the farms passed; the haystacks, the cornfields,

the familiar red barns--then the long coal sheds and the water

tank, and the train stopped.

On the platform he saw Ralph and Mr. Royce, waiting to welcome

him. Over there, in the automobile, were his father and mother,

Mr. Wheeler in the driver's seat. A line of motors stood along

the siding. He was the first soldier who had come home, and some

of the townspeople had driven down to see him arrive in his

uniform. From one car Susie Dawson waved to him, and from another

Gladys Farmer. While he stopped and spoke to them, Ralph took his

bags.

"Come along, boys," Mr. Wheeler called, tooting his horn, and he

hurried the soldier away, leaving only a cloud of dust behind.

Mr. Royce went over to old man Dawson's car and said rather

childishly, "It can't be that Claude's grown taller? I suppose

it's the way they learn to carry themselves. He always was a

manly looking boy."

"I expect his mother's a proud woman," said Susie, very much

excited. "It's too bad Enid can't be here to see him. She would

never have gone away if she'd known all that was to happen."

Susie did not mean this as a thrust, but it took effect. Mr.

Royce turned away and lit a cigar with some difficulty. His hands

had grown very unsteady this last year, though he insisted that

his general health was as good as ever. As he grew older, he was

more depressed by the conviction that his women-folk had added

little to the warmth and comfort of the world. Women ought to do

that, whatever else they did. He felt apologetic toward the

Wheelers and toward his old friends. It seemed as if his

daughters had no heart.

XI

Camp habits persisted. On his first morning at home Claude came

downstairs before even Mahailey was stirring, and went out to

have a look at the stock. The red sun came up just as he was

going down the hill toward the cattle corral, and he had the

pleasant feeling of being at home, on his father's land. Why was

it so gratifying to be able to say "our hill," and "our creek

down yonder"? to feel the crunch of this particular dried mud

under his boots?

When he went into the barn to see the horses, the first creatures

to meet his eye were the two big mules that had run away with

him, standing in the stalls next the door. It flashed upon Claude

that these muscular quadrupeds were the actual authors of his

fate. If they had not bolted with him and thrown him into the

wire fence that morning, Enid would not have felt sorry for him

and come to see him every day, and his life might have turned out

differently. Perhaps if older people were a little more honest,

and a boy were not taught to idealize in women the very qualities

which can make him utterly unhappy--But there, he had got away

from those regrets. But wasn't it just like him to be dragged

into matrimony by a pair of mules!

He laughed as he looked at them. "You old devils, you're strong

enough to play such tricks on green fellows for years to come.

You're chock full of meanness!"

One of the animals wagged an ear and cleared his throat

threateningly. Mules are capable of strong affections, but they

hate snobs, are the enemies of caste, and this pair had always

seemed to detect in Claude what his father used to call his

"false pride." When he was a young lad they had been a source of

humiliation to him, braying and balking in public places, trying

to show off at the lumber yard or in front of the post office.

At the end manger Claude found old Molly, the grey mare with the

stiff leg, who had grown a second hoof on her off forefoot, an

achievement not many horses could boast of. He was sure she

recognized him; she nosed his hand and arm and turned back her

upper lip, showing her worn, yellow teeth.

"Mustn't do that, Molly," he said as he stroked her. "A dog can

laugh, but it makes a horse look foolish. Seems to me Dan might

curry you about once a week!" He took a comb from its niche

behind a joist and gave her old coat a rubbing. Her white hair

was flecked all over with little rust-coloured dashes, like India

ink put on with a fine brush, and her mane and tail had turned a

greenish yellow. She must be eighteen years old, Claude reckoned,

as he polished off her round, heavy haunches. He and Ralph used

to ride her over to the Yoeders' when they were barefoot

youngsters, guiding her with a rope halter, and kicking at the

leggy colt that was always running alongside.

When he entered the kitchen and asked Mahailey for warm water to

wash his hands, she sniffed him disapprovingly.

"Why, Mr. Claude, you've been curryin' that old mare, and you've

got white hairs all over your soldier-clothes. You're jist

covered!"

If his uniform stirred feeling in people of sober judgment, over

Mahailey it cast a spell. She was so dazzled by it that all the

time Claude was at home she never once managed to examine it in

detail. Before she got past his puttees, her powers of

observation were befogged by excitement, and her wits began to

jump about like monkeys in a cage. She had expected his uniform

to be blue, like those she remembered, and when he walked into

the kitchen last night she scarcely knew what to make of him.

After Mrs. Wheeler explained to her that American soldiers didn't

wear blue now, Mahailey repeated to herself that these brown

clothes didn't show the dust, and that Claude would never look

like the bedraggled men who used to stop to drink at her mother's

spring.

"Them leather leggins is to keep the briars from scratchin' you,

ain't they? I 'spect there's an awful lot of briars over there,

like them long blackberry vines in the fields in Virginia. Your

madder says the soldiers git lice now, like they done in our war.

You jist carry a little bottle of coal-oil in your pocket an' rub

it on your head at night. It keeps the nits from hatchin'."

Over the flour barrel in the corner Mahailey had tacked a Red

Cross poster; a charcoal drawing of an old woman poking with a

stick in a pile of plaster and twisted timbers that had once been

her home. Claude went over to look at it while he dried his

hands.

"Where did you get your picture?"

"She's over there where you're goin', Mr. Claude. There she is,

huntin' for somethin' to cook with; no stove nor no dishes nor

nothin'--everything all broke up. I reckon she'll be mighty glad

to see you comin'."

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Mahailey whispered

hastily, "Don't forgit about the coal-oil, and don't you be lousy

if you can help it, honey." She considered lice in the same class

with smutty jokes,--things to be whispered about.

After breakfast Mr. Wheeler took Claude out to the fields, where

Ralph was directing the harvesters. They watched the binder for a

while, then went over to look at the haystacks and alfalfa, and

walked along the edge of the cornfield, where they examined the

young ears. Mr. Wheeler explained and exhibited the farm to

Claude as if he were a stranger; the boy had a curious feeling of

being now formally introduced to these acres on which he had

worked every summer since he was big enough to carry water to the

harvesters. His father told him how much land they owned, and how

much it was worth, and that it was unencumbered except for a

trifling mortgage he had given on one quarter when he took over

the Colorado ranch.

"When you come back," he said, "you and Ralph won't have to hunt

around to get into business. You'll both be well fixed. Now you'd

better go home by old man Dawson's and drop in to see Susie.

Everybody about here was astonished when Leonard went." He walked

with Claude to the corner where the Dawson land met his own. "By

the way," he said as he turned back, "don't forget to go in to

see the Yoeders sometime. Gus is pretty sore since they had him

up in court. Ask for the old grandmother. You remember she never

learned any English. And now they've told her it's dangerous to

talk German, she don't talk at all and hides away from everybody.

If I go by early in the morning, when she's out weeding the

garden, she runs and squats down in the gooseberry bushes till

I'm out of sight."

Claude decided he would go to the Yoeders' today, and to the

Dawsons' tomorrow. He didn't like to think there might be hard

feeling toward him in a house where he had had so many good

times, and where he had often found a refuge when things were

dull at home. The Yoeder boys had a music-box long before the

days of Victrolas, and a magic lantern, and the old grandmother

made wonderful shadow-pictures on a sheet, and told stories about

them. She used to turn the map of Europe upside down on the

kitchen table and showed the children how, in this position, it

looked like a jungfrau; and recited a long German rhyme which

told how Spain was the maiden's head, the Pyrenees her lace ruff,

Germany her heart and bosom, England and Italy were two arms, and

Russia, though it looked so big, was only a hoopskirt. This rhyme

would probably be condemned as dangerous propaganda now!

As he walked on alone, Claude was thinking how this country that

had once seemed little and dull to him, now seemed large and rich

in variety. During the months in camp he had been wholly absorbed

in new work and new friendships, and now his own neighbourhood

came to him with the freshness of things that have been forgotten

for a long while,--came together before his eyes as a harmonious

whole. He was going away, and he would carry the whole

countryside in his mind, meaning more to him than it ever had

before. There was Lovely Creek, gurgling on down there, where he

and Ernest used to sit and lament that the book of History was

finished; that the world had come to avaricious old age and noble

enterprise was dead for ever. But he was going away....

That afternoon Claude spent with his mother. It was the first

time she had had him to herself. Ralph wanted terribly to stay

and hear his brother talk, but understanding how his mother felt,

he went back to the wheat field. There was no detail of Claude's

life in camp so trivial that Mrs. Wheeler did not want to hear

about it. She asked about the mess, the cooks, the laundry, as

well as about his own duties. She made him describe the bayonet

drill and explain the operation of machine guns and automatic

rifles.

"I hardly see how we can bear the anxiety when our transports

begin to sail," she said thoughtfully. "If they can once get you

all over there, I am not afraid; I believe our boys are as good

as any in the world. But with submarines reported off our own

coast, I wonder how the Government can get our men across safely.

The thought of transports going down with thousands of young men

on board is something so terrible--" she put her hands quickly

over her eyes.

Claude, sitting opposite his mother, wondered what it was about

her hands that made them so different from any others he had ever

seen. He had always known they were different, but now he must

look closely and see why. They were slender, and always white,

even when the nails were stained at preserving time. Her fingers

arched back at the joints, as if they were shrinking from

contacts. They were restless, and when she talked often brushed

her hair or her dress lightly. When she was excited she sometimes

put her hand to her throat, or felt about the neck of her gown,

as if she were searching for a forgotten brooch. They were

sensitive hands, and yet they seemed to have nothing to do with

sense, to be almost like the groping fingers of a spirit.

"How do you boys feel about it?"

Claude started. "About what, Mother? Oh, the transportation! We

don't worry about that. It's the Government's job to get us

across. A soldier mustn't worry about anything except what he's

directly responsible for. If the Germans should sink a few troop

ships, it would be unfortunate, certainly, but it wouldn't cut any

figure in the long run. The British are perfecting an enormous

dirigible, built to carry passengers. If our transports are sunk,

it will only mean delay. In another year the Yankees will be

flying over. They can't stop us."

Mrs. Wheeler bent forward. "That must be boys' talk, Claude.

Surely you don't believe such a thing could be practicable?"

"Absolutely. The British are depending on their aircraft

designers to do just that, if everything else fails. Of course,

nobody knows yet how effective the submarines will be in our

case."

Mrs. Wheeler again shaded her eyes with her hand. "When I was

young, back in Vermont, I used to wish that I had lived in the

old times when the world went ahead by leaps and bounds. And now,

I feel as if my sight couldn't bear the glory that beats upon it.

It seems as if we would have to be born with new faculties, to

comprehend what is going on in the air and under the sea."