window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the
cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay
chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and
sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last
going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and
he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself
believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about
to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.

He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life--of vague and bloody
conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In visions
he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples secure
in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded
battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them
as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and
high castles. There was a portion of the world's history which he had
regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone
over the horizon and had disappeared forever.

From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own
country with distrust. It must be some sort of a play affair. He had
long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no
more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and
religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else
firm finance held in check the passions.

He had burned several times to enlist. Tales of great movements shook
the land. They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be
much glory in them. He had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he
had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large
pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.

But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with some
contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism. She could
calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give him many
hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm
than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of expression
that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep
conviction. Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical
motive in the argument was impregnable.