dren, who would be
wheeled about that same neighborhood in perambulators and who would
ultimately grow up and look after themselves.

"The use?" she asked tartly.

"Of having babies, and getting to care about them, and then--There will
always be wars, won't there?"

"You turn over and go to sleep," counseled Aunt Harriet. "And stop
looking twenty years or more ahead." She hesitated. "You haven't
quarreled with Harvey, have you?"

Sara Lee turned over obediently.

"No. It's not that," she said. And the door closed.

Perhaps, had she ever had time during the crowded months that followed,
Sara Lee would have dated certain things from that cold frosty night in
December when she began to question things. For after all that was what
it came to. She did not revolt. She questioned.

She lay in her white bed and looked at things for the first time. The
sky had seemed low that night. Things were nearer. The horizon was
close. And beyond that peaceful horizon, to the east, something was
going on that could not be ignored. Men were dying. Killing and dying.
Men who had been waited for as Anna watched for her child.

Downstairs she could hear Aunt Harriet moving about. The street was
quiet, until a crowd of young people--she knew them by their
voices--went by, laughing.

"It's horrible," said Sara Lee to herself. There was a change in her,
but she was still inarticulate. Somewhere in her mind, but not
formulated, was the feeling that she was too comfortable. Her peace was
a cheap peace, bought at no price. Her last waking determination was to
finish the afghan quickly and to knit for the men at the war.

Uncle James was ill the next morning. Sara Lee went for the doctor, but
Anna's hour had come and he was with her. Late in the afternoon he came,
however looking a bit gray round the mouth with fatigue, but triumphant.
He had on these occasions always a sense of victory; even, in a way, a
feeling of being part of a great purpose. He talked at such times of the
race, as one may who is doing his best by it.

"Well," he said when Sara Lee opened the door, "it's a boy. Eight
pounds. Going to be red-headed, too." He chuckled.

"A boy!" said Sara Lee. "I--don't you bring any girl babies any more?"

The doctor put down his hat and glanced at her.

"Wanted a girl, to be named for you?"

"No. It's not that. It's only--" She checked herself. He wouldn't
understand. The race required girl babies. "I've put a blue bow on my
af