ing in plenty of time and found
themselves a commission somewhere, two of them having settled up matters
but a few days before. She had thought of these draft men, when she had
thought of them at all, only when she saw mention of them in the
newspapers, and then as a lot of workingmen or farmers' boys who were
reluctant to leave their homes and had to be forced into patriotism in
this way. It had not occurred to her that there were many honorable young
men who would take this way of putting themselves at the disposal of
their country in her time of need, without attempting to feather a nice
little nest for themselves. Now she watched them seriously and found to
her astonishment that she knew many of them. There were three college
fellows in the front ranks whom she had met. She had danced with them and
been taken out to supper by them, and had a calling acquaintance with
their sisters. The sister of one stood on the sidewalk now in the common
crowd, quite near to the runabout, and seemed to have forgotten that
anybody was by. Her face was drenched with tears and her lips were
quivering. Behind her was a gray-haired woman with a skewey blouse and a
faded dark blue serge skirt too long for the prevailing fashion. The
tears were trickling down her cheeks also; and an old man with a crutch,
and a little round-eyed girl, seemed to belong to the party. The old
man's lips were set and he was looking at the boys with his heart in his
eyes.

Ruth shrank back not to intrude upon such open sorrow, and glanced at the
line again as they straggled down the road to the platform; fifty
serious, grave-eyed young men with determined mien and sorrow in the very
droop of their shoulders. One could see how they hated all this publicity
and display, this tense moment of farewell in the eyes of the town; and
yet how tender they felt toward those dear ones who had gathered thus to
do them honor as they went away to do their part in the great
world-struggle for liberty.

As she looked closer the girl saw they were not mature men as at first
glance they had seemed, but most of them mere boys. There was the boy
that mowed the Macdonald lawn, and the yellow-haired grocery boy. There
was the gas man and the nice young plumber who fixed the leak in the
water pipes the other day, and the clerk from the post office, and the
cashier from the bank! What made them look so old at first sight? Why, it
was as if sorrow and responsibility had suddenly been