efore him had only a few
months before opened his automobile door for him, and stood waiting with
a rug to spread over his knees. He got up and shook hands.

"You look like a different man, Jackson."

"Well, at least I feel like a man."

"Sit down," he said. And again it occurred to him that never before had
he asked Jackson to sit down in his presence. It was wrong, somehow. The
whole class system was absurd. Maybe war would change that, too. It was
doing many queer things, already.

He had sent for Jackson, but he did not at once approach the reason.
He sat back, while Jackson talked of the border and Joey slipped in and
pretended to sharpen lead pencils.

Clayton's eyes wandered to the window. Outside in the yard were other
men, now employees of his, who would soon be in khaki. Out of every
group there in a short time some would be gone, and of those who would
go a certain number would never come back. That was what war was; one
day a group of men, laboring with their hands or their brains, that some
little home might live; that they might go back at evening to that home,
and there rest for the next day's toil. And the next, gone. Every man
out there in the yard was loved by some one. To a certain number of them
this day meant death, or wounding. It meant separation, and suffering,
and struggle.

And all over the country there were such groups.

The roar of the plant came in through the open window. A freight car was
being loaded with finished shells. As fast as it was filled, another
car was shunted along the spur to take its place. Over in Germany, in
hundreds of similar plants, similar shells were being hurried to the
battle line, to be hurled against the new army that was soon to cross
the seas.

All those men, and back of every man, a woman.

Jackson had stopped. Joey was regarding him with stealthy admiration,
and holding his breast bone very high. Already in his mind Joey was a
soldier.

"You did not say in your note why you wanted to see me, Mr. Spencer."

He roused himself with a visible effort.

"I sent for you, yes," he said. "I sent--I'll tell you why I sent for
you, Jackson. I've been meaning to do it for several weeks. Now that
this has come I'm more than glad I did so. You can't keep your family on
what you are getting. That's certain."

"My wife is going to help me, sir. The boy will soon be weaned. Then she
intends to get a position. She was a milliner when we were married."

"But--