sanctity of their seclusion
seemed sacrilegious to David, who longed to have lived in the olden
time of log houses, with their picturesque open fires and candle
lights. Following some vague inward call, he went out of his way to
ride past the tiny house he had once called home, and which in all his
ramblings he had steadfastly avoided. He had heard that the place had
passed into the hands of a widow with an only son, and that they had
purchased surrounding land for cultivation. He had been glad to hear
this, and had liked to fancy the son caring for his mother as he
himself would have cared for his mother had she lived.

As he neared the little nutshell of a house his heart beat fast at the
sight of a woman pinning clothes to the line. Her fingers, stiff and
swollen, moved slowly. The same instinct that had guided him down this
road made him dismount and tie his horse. The old woman came slowly
down the little path to meet him.

"I am David Dunne," he said gently, "and I used to live here. I wanted
to come to see my old home once more."

He thought that the dim eyes gazing into his were the saddest he had
ever beheld.

"Yes," she replied, with the slow, German accent, "I know of you. Come
in."

He followed her into the little sitting room, which was as barren of
furnishings as it had been in the olden days.

"Sit down," she invited.

He took a chair opposite a cheap picture of a youth in uniform. A flag
of coarse material was pinned above this portrait, and underneath was
a roughly carved bracket on which was a glass filled with goldenrod.

"You lived here with your mother," she said musingly, "and she was
taken. I lived here with my son, and--he was taken."

"Oh!" said David. "I did not know--was he--"

His eyes sought the picture on the wall.

"Yes," she replied, answering his unspoken question, as she lifted her
eyes to her little shrine, "he enlisted and went to the Philippines.
He died there of fever more than a year ago."

David was silent. His brown, boyish hand shaded his eyes. It had been
his fault that he had not heard of this old woman and the loss of her
son. He had shrunk from all knowledge and mention of this little home
and its inmates. The country folk had recognized and respected his
reticence, which to people near the soil seems natural. This had been
the only issue in his life that he had dodged, and he was bitterly
repenting his negligence. In memory of his mother, he should have
hel