nly way he can get over being frightened is to go on until he
becomes very, very angry, and then he can forget it for a time. You can
tell by his face that it would be easy to anger him.

"'But do not think he is cowardly, even if habitually frightened,
because I also talked with his captain, who is an outspoken man, and he
tells me that Wilbur is a regular fighting so-and-so. These were his
very words. They are army slang, and mean that he is a brave soldier. A
young man, a Mr. Edward Brennon from Newbern, a sort of athlete, came
over with him, and they have been constantly together. I did not see
this Mr. Brennon, but I hear that he, too, is gallantly great, and also
a regular fighting so-and-so, as these rough men put it in their slang.

"'Wilbur spoke of Merle's writing about the war, and about America's
being rotten to the core because of capital that people want to keep
from the workingman, and he says he now sees that Merle must have been
misled; as he puts it in his crude, forceful way, this man's country has
come to stay. He says that is what he always says to himself when he has
to go over the top, while he is still scared and before he grows
angry--"This man's country has come to stay." He says this big American
Army would laugh at many of Merle's speeches about America and the war.
He says the country is greater than any magazine, even the best. Now my
rest hour is over, and I must go in where they are doing terrible things
to these poor men. For a week I have been on my feet eighteen hours out
of each twenty-four. I have just time for another tiny cigarette before
going into that awful smell.'

"Mercy!" cried the amazed mother.

"There you are!" retorted the judge. "Let her go into the Army and she
takes up smoking. War leads to dissipation--ask any one."

"I must send her some," declared Mrs. Penniman; "or I wonder if she
rolls her own?"

"Yes, and pretty soon we'll have the whole house stenched up worse'n
what Dave Cowan's pipe does it," grumbled the judge. "The idee of a girl
of her years taking up cigarettes! A good thing the country's going dry.
Them that smoke usually drink."

"High time the girl had some fun," returned his wife, placidly.

"Needn't be shameless about it," grumbled the judge. "A good woman has
to draw the line somewhere."

The unbending moralist later protested that Winona's letters should not
be read to her friends. But Mrs. Penniman proved stubborn. She softened
no word of