stood still--and then I heard him
saying, 'It's from Holland.'

"The message was,

'Just arrived. Escaped from Germany. Quite well. Writing.
James Blythe.'

"I didn't faint or fall or scream. I didn't feel glad or surprised. I
didn't feel anything. I felt numb, just as I did when I heard Walter
had enlisted. I hung up the receiver and turned round. Mother was
standing in her doorway. She wore her old rose kimono, and her hair was
hanging down her back in a long thick braid, and her eyes were shining.
She looked just like a young girl.

"'There is word from Jem?' she said.

"How did she know? I hadn't said a word at the phone except
'Yes--yes--yes.' She says she doesn't know how she knew, but she did
know. She was awake and she heard the ring and she knew that there was
word from Jem.

"'He's alive--he's well--he's in Holland,' I said.

"Mother came out into the hall and said, 'I must get your father on the
'phone and tell him. He is in the Upper Glen.'

"She was very calm and quiet--not a bit like I would have expected her
to be. But then I wasn't either. I went and woke up Gertrude and Susan
and told them. Susan said 'Thank God,' firstly, and secondly she said
'Did I not tell you Dog Monday knew?' and thirdly, 'I'll go down and
make a cup of tea'--and she stalked down in her nightdress to make it.
She did make it--and made mother and Gertrude drink it--but I went back
to my room and shut my door and locked it, and I knelt by my window and
cried--just as Gertrude did when her great news came.

"I think I know at last exactly what I shall feel like on the
resurrection morning."

4th October 1918

"Today Jem's letter came. It has been in the house only six hours and
it is almost read to pieces. The post-mistress told everybody in the
Glen it had come, and everybody came up to hear the news.

"Jem was badly wounded in the thigh--and he was picked up and taken to
prison, so delirious with fever that he didn't know what was happening
to him or where he was. It was weeks before he came to his senses and
was able to write. Then he did write--but it never came. He wasn't
treated at all badly at his camp--only the food was poor. He had
nothing to eat but a little black bread and boiled turnips and now and
then a little soup with black peas in it. And we sat down every one of
those days to three good square luxurious meals! He wrote us as often
as he could but he was afraid we were not