know anything about all that," said Winona; "but sometimes I
almost think the Germans deserve a good beating."

This was extreme for Winona, the arch pacifist.

"You almost think so, eh? Well, that's a good specimen of almost
thinking. Because the Germans don't deserve any such thing unless
someone can give it to them. If the bird can swallow the worm the bird
deserves the worm. The most of us merely almost think."

It was much later--an age later, it seemed to Winona--for her country,
as she wrote in her journal, had crossed the Rubicon--that she went to
attend a meeting of protest in a larger city than Newbern; a meeting of
mothers and potential mothers who were persuaded that war was never
excusable.

She had listened to much impassioned oratory, with a sickening surprise
that it should leave her half-hearted in the cause of peace at any
price; and she had gone to take her train for home, troubled with a
monstrous indecision. Never before had she suffered an instant's
bewilderment in detecting right from wrong.

As she waited she had observed on a siding a long, dingy train, from the
windows of which looked the faces of boys. She was smitten with a quick
curiosity. There were tall boys and short boys; and a few of them were
plump, but mostly they were lean, with thin, browned faces, and they
were all ominously uniformed. Their keen young faces crowded the open
windows of the cars, and they thronged upon the platforms to make noisy
purchases from younger boys who offered them pitiful confections from
baskets and trays.

Winona stared at them with a sickened wonder. They were all so alive, so
alert, so smiling, so eager to be on with the great adventure. In one of
the cars a band of them roared a stirring chorus. It stirred Winona
beyond the calm that should mark people of the better sort. She forgot
that a gentleman should make no noise and that a lady is serene; forgot
utterly. She waved a hand--timidly at first--to a cluster of young heads
at a car window, and was a little dismayed when they waved heartily in
return. She recovered and waved at another group--less timidly this
time. Again the response was instant, and a malign power against which
she strove in vain carried Winona to the train's side. Heads were thrust
forth and greetings followed, some shy and low-toned, some with feigned
man-of-the-world jauntiness.

Winona was no longer Winona. A freckled young vender with a basket
halted beside her. Winon