he seemed to find some comfort in it he did not
attempt to convince her of its futility.

And, meanwhile The Lances of Dawn, Being the Collected Poems of
Albert M. C. Speranza was making a mild sensation. The critics were
surprisingly kind to it. The story of the young author's recent and
romantic death, of his gallantry, his handsome features displayed in
newspapers everywhere, all these helped toward the generous welcome
accorded the little volume. If the verses were not inspired--why, they
were at least entertaining and pleasant. And youth, high-hearted youth
sang on every page. So the reviewers were kind and forbearing to the
poems themselves, and, for the sake of the dead soldier-poet, were often
enthusiastic. The book sold, for a volume of poems it sold very well
indeed.

At the Snow place in South Harniss pride and tears mingled. Olive read
the verses over and over again, and wept as she read. Rachel Ellis
learned many of them by heart, but she, too, wept as she recited them to
herself or to Laban. In the little bookkeeper's room above Simond's shoe
store The Lances of Dawn lay under the lamp upon the center table as
before a shrine. Captain Zelotes read the verses. Also he read all
the newspaper notices which, sent to the family by Helen Kendall,
were promptly held before his eyes by Olive and Rachel. He read the
publisher's advertisements, he read the reviews. And the more he read
the more puzzled and bewildered he became.

"I can't understand it, Laban," he confided in deep distress to Mr.
Keeler. "I give in I don't know anything at all about this. I'm clean
off soundin's. If all this newspaper stuff is so Albert was right
all the time and I was plumb wrong. Here's this feller," picking up a
clipping from the desk, "callin' him a genius and 'a gifted youth' and
the land knows what. And every day or so I get a letter from somebody I
never heard of tellin' me what a comfort to 'em those poetry pieces of
his are. I don't understand it, Labe. It worries me. If all this is true
then--then I was all wrong. I tried to keep him from makin' up poetry,
Labe--TRIED to, I did. If what these folks say is so somethin' ought
to be done to me. I--I--by thunder, I don't know's I hadn't ought to be
hung! . . . And yet--and yet, I did what I thought was right and did
it for the boy's sake . . . And--and even now I--I ain't sartin I was
wrong. But if I wasn't wrong then this is . . . Oh, I don't know, I
don't know!"

And not