t of France, but of the world! He knew he was not the only
farmer boy who wished himself tonight beside the Marne. The fact
that the river had a pronounceable name, with a hard Western "r"
standing like a keystone in the middle of it, somehow gave one's
imagination a firmer hold on the situation. Lying still and
thinking fast, Claude felt that even he could clear the bar of
French "politeness"--so much more terrifying than German
bullets--and slip unnoticed into that outnumbered army. One's
manners wouldn't matter on the Marne tonight, the night of the
eighth of September, 1914. There was nothing on earth he would so
gladly be as an atom in that wall of flesh and blood that rose
and melted and rose again before the city which had meant so much
through all the centuries--but had never meant so much before.
Its name had come to have the purity of an abstract idea. In
great sleepy continents, in land-locked harvest towns, in the
little islands of the sea, for four days men watched that name as
they might stand out at night to watch a comet, or to see a star
fall.

X

It was Sunday afternoon and Claude had gone down to the mill
house, as Enid and her mother had returned from Michigan the day
before. Mrs. Wheeler, propped back in a rocking chair, was
reading, and Mr. Wheeler, in his shirt sleeves, his Sunday collar
unbuttoned, was sitting at his walnut secretary, amusing himself
with columns of figures. Presently he rose and yawned, stretching
his arms above his head.

"Claude thinks he wants to begin building right away, up on the
quarter next the timber claim. I've been figuring on the lumber.
Building materials are cheap just now, so I suppose I'd better
let him go ahead."

Mrs. Wheeler looked up absently from the page. "Why, I suppose
so."

Her husband sat down astride a chair, and leaning his arms on the
back of it, looked at her. "What do you think of this match,
anyway? I don't know as I've heard you say."

"Enid is a good, Christian girl..." Mrs. Wheeler began
resolutely, but her sentence hung in the air like a question.

He moved impatiently. "Yes, I know. But what does a husky boy
like Claude want to pick out a girl like that for? Why,
Evangeline, she'll be the old woman over again!"

Apparently these misgivings were not new to Mrs. Wheeler, for she
put out her hand to stop him and whispered in solemn agitation,
"Don't say anything! Don't breathe!"

"Oh, I won't interfere! I never do. I'd rather