ath with 'em. Their country
honored 'em; they wuzn't thrust into dishonored graves, some as
paupers, some as criminals swingin' from scaffolds. Their country
mourns for 'em and honors 'em. It wuzn't glad to cover their faces
away from the light, brutish faces to hant 'em with reproach, I should
think, knowin' how they died. Try to think of that, Frederic; try to
take it to heart."

I hearn Arvilly behind me breathin' hard and kinder chokin' seemin'ly,
and I knew she wuz holdin' herself in as tight as if she had a rope
round her emotions and indignations to keep her from breakin' in and
jinin' our talk, but she wuz as true as steel to her word and didn't
say nothin' and I resoomed:

"You've got to take such things to hum to realize 'em," sez I. "Owin'
to a sweet mother and a good father your boy mebby is safe. But
spozein' he wuzn't, spozein' you and his sweet ma had to look on as
millions of other pas and mas have to and see his handsome, manly
young face growin' red, dissipated, brutal; his light, gay young heart
changed to a demon's, and from bein' your chief pride you had to hide
him out of sight like the foul and loathsome leper he had become.
Millions of other pas and mas that love their boys as well as you love
yours have to do this. And if it wuz your boy what would you say of
the legalized crime that made him so? Wouldn't you turn the might of
your great strength aginst it?"

He didn't speak out loud, but I see from his looks that he would.
"Then," sez I, "do, do think of other pas and mas and sisters and
sweethearts and wives weepin' and wailin' for husbands, sons and
brothers slain by this enemy! I spoze," sez I reasonably, "that you
think it is an old story and monotonous, but Love is an old story and
Grief and Death, but they are jest as true as at the creation and jest
as solemn." I thought he looked a good deal convinced, but he looked
as if he wuz thinkin' of the extreme difficulty of reachin' and
vanquishin' this foe intrenched as it is in the lowest passions of
men, hidin' behind the highest legal barriers and barricaded behind
meetin' house doors, guarded by the ballots of saint and sinner; I
read these thoughts on his forehead, and answered 'em jest as if he'd
spoke.

Sez I, "When your illustrious father come up face to face with a foe
no other general could manage, did he flinch and draw back because it
had been called onmanageable by everybody else? No, he drawed a line
between good and evil,