in her eyes, in spite of the
clutch at her heartstrings.

"Splendid, Joe," she said with what enthusiasm she could put into
her words. "You are glad, aren't you, dear?"

"Not glad, mother darling." Joe placed his arm around her slender
waist tenderly. They were very close, these two. "Not glad. That
does not express it. I couldn't be glad to go away and leave you.
Though, for that matter, you will be all right. I feel sort of an
inspiration I can't explain. It is all so big. It seems so
necessary that I should go, and I felt that I should be so utterly
out of it if I did not go one day. When the colonel spoke that
way it seemed like a sort of fulfillment of something that had to
come, whether or no. I might call it fate, but that does not describe
it quite. It is bigger than fate. It sounds silly, mother, but
it is a sort of exaltation, in a sense. It had to come, and I feel
it is almost a holy thing to me."

Joe's mother put her two hands on his shoulders. Her eyes were moist,
but her courage never faltered. "Joe, such boys as you are could not
stay at home. You are your father's son, dear."

"And my mother's," said Joe soberly. "It is from you I get the
strength to want to do my duty, and I will not forget it when the
strain comes. I will always have your face in front of me to lead
me on, mother."

CHAPTER IV

OFF FOR THE FRONT

Months passed. The training of the Brighton boys went on steadily
after they entered the service until each one of the six of them
that were still at the home airdrome was a highly efficient flier
and well-grounded in the construction of air-machines as well.

Louis Deschamps had gone, with his mother, to France. Fat Benson
had been passed on to a more important job. His work had been so
thorough in the stores department that he was now being used as
an inspector, traveling over half a dozen states, visiting all sorts
of factories that were being broken-in gradually to turn out the
necessary aeroplane parts in ever-increasing quantities as the war
progressed.

Then came the day when the contingent into which the Brighton boys
had been drafted started, at last, for France. Final good-bys were
said, last parting tears were shed, the cheers and Academy yells
at the station died into the distance as the train pulled out, and
the six young airmen, proud in the security of full knowledge that
they were no novices, were truly "off for the front."

The day