When I
read a novel that makes me want to weep I just say severely to myself,
'Now, Susan Baker, you know that is all a pack of lies.' But we must
carry on. Jack Crawford says he is going to the war because he is tired
of farming. I hope he will find it a pleasant change. And Mrs. Richard
Elliott over-harbour is worrying herself sick because she used to be
always scolding her husband about smoking up the parlour curtains. Now
that he has enlisted she wishes she had never said a word to him. You
know Josiah Cooper and William Daley, Mrs. Dr. dear. They used to be
fast friends but they quarrelled twenty years ago and have never spoken
since. Well, the other day Josiah went to William and said right out,
'Let us be friends. 'Tain't any time to be holding grudges.' William
was real glad and held out his hand, and they sat down for a good talk.
And in less than half an hour they had quarrelled again, over how the
war ought to be fought, Josiah holding that the Dardanelles expedition
was rank folly and William maintaining that it was the one sensible
thing the Allies had done. And now they are madder at each other than
ever and William says Josiah is as bad a pro-German as
Whiskers-on-the-Moon. Whiskers-on-the-moon vows he is no pro-German but
calls himself a pacifist, whatever that may be. It is nothing proper or
Whiskers would not be it and that you may tie to. He says that the big
British victory at New Chapelle cost more than it was worth and he has
forbid Joe Milgrave to come near the house because Joe ran up his
father's flag when the news came. Have you noticed, Mrs. Dr. dear, that
the Czar has changed that Prish name to Premysl, which proves that the
man had good sense, Russian though he is? Joe Vickers told me in the
store that he saw a very queer looking thing in the sky tonight over
Lowbridge way. Do you suppose it could have been a Zeppelin, Mrs. Dr.
dear?"

"I do not think it very likely, Susan."

"Well, I would feel easier about it if Whiskers-on-the-moon were not
living in the Glen. They say he was seen going through strange
manoeuvres with a lantern in his back yard one night lately. Some
people think he was signalling."

"To whom--or what?"

"Ah, that is the mystery, Mrs. Dr. dear. In my opinion the Government
would do well to keep an eye on that man if it does not want us to be
all murdered in our beds some night. Now I shall just look over the
papers a minute before going to write a letter to little Je