aren't you just a little tied to
your mother's apron strings?"

"I don't know," replied Bill good-naturedly. "I think it is a pretty
good place to be tied to if anyone should ask me, and if I am, I hope I
am tied so tight she will never lose me off."

He shook himself down and started toward his little car. "So long! Come
see us!" he called over his shoulder.

Frank scrambled to his feet and followed. He stood watching while Bill
settled himself in his seat and started the engine. He stood looking
after him until the speedy little automobile swept out of sight across
the prairie and down the rough road that led to the New Post and from
there on to the School of Fire.

Frank gave a grin. "It's a dandy car, all right," he said, "and he may
be able to swim and ride the way he says he does, but I can beat him out
on one point. I can pilot a plane, and I have been up in an observation
balloon. I wonder what he would look like up in the air. I bet he would
be good and sick!"

Bill, guiding the car with a practiced hand, swept smoothly along,
avoiding the ruts made by the great trucks belonging to the ammunition
trains and the rough wheels of the caissons.

Bill was thinking hard. The years of his life came back to his thoughts
one by one.

When his father died, he was only four years old, and his pretty young
mother had been obliged to go out into the world and support herself and
her little son. They had lived alone together, in the dainty bungalow
that had been saved from the wreck of their fortunes, and had come to be
more than mother and son; they were companions and pals.

So when Major Sherman appeared, and surprised Bill greatly by wanting to
marry his mother, he was not surprised to hear her say that the Major
would have to get the permission of her son before she could say yes.

Bill and his mother had many a long and confidential talk in those days
and Bill learned, through her confidences, a great deal about the
strange thing that grown people call love. Bill's mother talked to her
son as she would have talked to a brother or a father, and the result
was that one day young Bill had a long talk with Major Sherman, a talk
that the Major at least never forgot. After it was over, Bill led the
way to his mother, and taking her hand said gravely:

"Mother, we have been talking things over, and I think you ought to
marry the Major. You are a good deal of a care sometimes, and I have his
promise that he will he