e.

"We've got to do it, Mother," he declared, over and over again. "Sooner
or later we've got to fight that Kaiser gang. What are we waitin' for;
will somebody tell me that?"

Olive, as usual, was mild and unruffled.

"Probably the President knows as much about it as you and me, Zelotes,"
she suggested. "I presume likely he has his own reasons."

"Humph! When Seth Bassett got up in the night and took a drink out of
the bottle of Paris Green by mistake 'Bial Cahoon asked him what in time
he kept Paris Green in his bedroom for, anyhow. All that Seth would say
was that he had his own reasons. The rest of the town was left to guess
what those reasons was. That's what the President's doin'--keepin' us
guessin'. By the everlastin', if I was younger I'd ship aboard a British
lime-juicer and go and fight, myself!"

It was Rachel Ellis who caused the Captain to be a bit more restrained
in his remarks.

"You hadn't ought to talk that way, Cap'n Lote," she said. "Not when
Albert's around, you hadn't."

"Eh? Why not?"

"Because the first thing you know he'll be startin' for Canada to
enlist. He's been crazy to do it for 'most a year."

"He has? How do you know he has?"

"Because he's told me so, more'n once."

Her employer looked at her.

"Humph!" he grunted. "He seems to tell you a good many things he doesn't
tell the rest of us."

The housekeeper nodded. "Yes," she said gravely, "I shouldn't wonder
if he did." A moment later she added, "Cap'n Lote, you will be careful,
won't you? You wouldn't want Al to go off and leave Z. Snow and Company
when him and you are gettin' on so much better. You ARE gettin' on
better, ain't you?"

The captain pulled at his beard.

"Yes," he admitted, "seems as if we was. He ain't any wonder at
bookkeepin', but he's better'n he used to be; and he does seem to try
hard, I'll say that for him."

Rachael beamed gratification. "He'll be a Robert Penfold yet," she
declared; "see if he isn't. So you musn't encourage him into enlistin'
in the Canadian army. You wouldn't want him to do that any more'n the
rest of us would."

The captain gazed intently into the bowl of the pipe which he had been
cleaning. He made no answer.

"You wouldn't want him to do that, would you?" repeated the housekeeper.

Captain Lote blew through the pipe stem. Then he said, "No, I wouldn't
. . . but I'm darn glad he's got the spunk to WANT to do it. We may
get that Portygee streak out of him, poetry and all