not to worry--I'm all right--fit as a fiddle--and glad I
came. There's something across from us here that has got to be wiped
out of the world, that's all--an emanation of evil that would otherwise
poison life for ever. It's got to be done, dad, however long it takes,
and whatever it costs, and you tell the Glen people this for me. They
don't realize yet what it is has broken loose--I didn't when I first
joined up. I thought it was fun. Well, it isn't! But I'm in the right
place all right--make no mistake about that. When I saw what had been
done here to homes and gardens and people--well, dad, I seemed to see a
gang of Huns marching through Rainbow Valley and the Glen, and the
garden at Ingleside. There were gardens over here--beautiful gardens
with the beauty of centuries--and what are they now? Mangled,
desecrated things! We are fighting to make those dear old places where
we had played as children, safe for other boys and girls--fighting for
the preservation and safety of all sweet, wholesome things.

"Whenever any of you go to the station be sure to give Dog Monday a
double pat for me. Fancy the faithful little beggar waiting there for
me like that! Honestly, dad, on some of these dark cold nights in the
trenches, it heartens and braces me up no end to think that thousands
of miles away at the old Glen station there is a small spotted dog
sharing my vigil.

"Tell Rilla I'm glad her war-baby is turning out so well, and tell
Susan that I'm fighting a good fight against both Huns and cooties."

"Mrs. Dr. dear," whispered Susan solemnly, "what are cooties?"

Mrs. Blythe whispered back and then said in reply to Susan's horrified
ejaculations, "It's always like that in the trenches, Susan."

Susan shook her head and went away in grim silence to re-open a parcel
she had sewed up for Jem and slip in a fine tooth comb.

CHAPTER XII

IN THE DAYS OF LANGEMARCK

"How can spring come and be beautiful in such a horror," wrote Rilla in
her diary. "When the sun shines and the fluffy yellow catkins are
coming out on the willow-trees down by the brook, and the garden is
beginning to be beautiful I can't realize that such dreadful things are
happening in Flanders. But they are!

"This past week has been terrible for us all, since the news came of
the fighting around Ypres and the battles of Langemarck and St. Julien.
Our Canadian boys have done splendidly--General French says they 'saved
the situation,' when the German