held their grain over openly rejoiced at the prospect
of better prices, and the younger men, when asked to enlist, replied
by saying that the people who made the war had better do the fighting
because they had no ambition to go out and stop German bullets. The
general feeling was that it would soon be over.

At the first recruiting meeting Stanley volunteered his services by
walking down the aisle of the church at the first invitation. The
recruiting officer motioned to him to be seated, and that he would see
him after the meeting.

Stanley waited patiently until every person was gone, and then timidly
said, "And now, sir, will you please tell me what I am to do?"

The recruiting officer, a dapper little fellow, very pompous and
important, turned him down mercilessly. Stanley was dismayed. He
wandered idly out of the church and was about to start off on his
four-mile walk to the Stopping House when a sudden impulse seized him
and he followed the recruiting agent to the house where he was
staying.

He overtook him just as he was going into the house, and, seizing him
by the arm, cried, "Don't you see, sir, that you must take me? I am
strong and able--I tell you I am no coward--what have you against me,
I want to know?"

The recruiting officer hesitated. Confound it all! It is a hard thing
to tell a man that he is not exactly right in the head.

But he did not need to say it, for Stanley beat him to it. "I know
what's wrong," he said; "you think I'm not very bright--I am not,
either. But don't you see, war is an elemental sort of thing. I can do
what I'm told--and I can fight. What does it matter if my head is not
very clear on some things which are easy to you? And don't you see how
much I want to go? Life has not been so sweet that I should want to
hold on to it. The young men here do not want to go, for they are
having such a good time. But there is nothing ahead of me that holds
me back. Can't you see that, sir? Won't you pass me on, anyway, and
let me have my chance? Give me a trial; it's time enough to turn me
down when I fail at something. Won't you take me, sir?"

The recruiting officer sadly shook his head. Stanley watched him in an
agony of suspense. Here was his way out--his way of escape from this
body of death that had hung over him ever since he could remember. He
drew nearer to the recruiting officer,--"For God's sake, sir, take
me!" he cried.

Then the recruiting officer pulled himself together a