ood I had in mind, when all along it's been mine.
That's what it's been, mine!"

"Aw, now, Gert----"

"You got to go, Jimmie. You got to go, because you want to go
and--because I want you to go."

"Where?"

"To war."

He took hold of her two arms because they were trembling. "Aw, now,
Gert, I didn't say anything complaining. I----"

"You did, Jimmie, you did, and--and I never was so glad over you that
you did complain. I just never was so glad. I want you to go, Jimmie. I
want you to go and get a man made out of you. They'll make a better job
out of you than ever I can. I want you to get the yellow streak washed
out. I want you to get to be all the things he said you would. For every
line he was talking up there, I could see my boy coming home to me some
day better than anything I could make out of him, babying him the way I
can't help doing. I could see you, honey-bee, coming back to me with the
kind of lift to your head a fellow has when he's been fighting to make
the world a safe place for dem--for whatever it was he said. I want you
to go, Jimmie. I want you to beat the draft, too. Nothing on earth can
make me not want you to go."

"Why, Gert--you're kiddin'!"

"Honey, you want to go, don't you? You want to square up those shoulders
and put on khaki, don't you? Tell me you want to go!"

"Why--why, yes, Gert, if----"

"Oh, you're going, Jimmie! You're going!"

"Why, girl--you're crazy! Our flat! Our furniture--our----"

"What's a flat? What's furniture? What's anything? There's not a firm in
business wouldn't take back a boy's furniture--a boy's
everything--that's going out to fight for--for dem-o-cracy! What's a
flat? What's anything?"

He let drop his head to hide his eyes.

Do you know it is said that on the Desert of Sahara, the slope of
Sorrento, and the marble of Fifth Avenue the sun can shine whitest?
There is an iridescence to its glittering on bleached sand, blue bay,
and Carrara facade that is sheer light distilled to its utmost.

On one such day when, standing on the high slope of Fifth Avenue where
it rises toward the Park, and looking down on it, surging to and fro, it
was as if, so manifest the brilliancy, every head wore a tin helmet,
parrying sunlight at a thousand angles of refraction.

Parade-day, all this glittering midstream is swept to the clean sheen of
a strip of moire, this splendid desolation blocked on each side by
crowds half the density of the sidewalk.

On one of