In Orchard Glen

CHAPTER X

CALLED TO THE COLOURS

For some time after the first stir of Burke's and Trooper's departure, the war occupied all minds. The first shock of German brutality was shaking civilisation, and people were trying to readjust themselves to living back in the days of barbarity. Mr. Holmes was compelled each day to contradict the prophecies he had made the day before until he became quite discouraged, and the groups that met every day at the store to wait for the daily papers which the Doctor and Mr. Sinclair took, began to have their long-established faith in his opinions rather disturbed.

For even if the Germans had not succeeded in persuading the postmaster that he was wrong Dr. McGarry would have done so. The Doctor was a tremendously loyal Briton and these disastrous days were hard on his temper. People were afraid to ask him how the war was going, when he opened the newspaper, for if it were bad woe betide the questioner. The reverses of the Allies were nearly breaking his big heart and he had to vent his grief and wrath on somebody. He railed at Britain for being unprepared, he stormed at the United States for their neutrality, and he denounced Canada for being so slow, and always ended up by declaring that Germany would win and wishing with all his heart that, instead of being sixty, he were Trooper's age and were riding with him in the Princess Pats.

This sort of talk made an uncomfortable home atmosphere for young Wallace, who had no desires to be up and away from the comfortable fire-side and all the pleasant surroundings of Orchard Glen, and just now his environment, with Christina Lindsay's bright eyes to welcome him wherever he went, was pleasanter than he had ever dreamed it could be.

But if the Doctor's fiery patriotism did not greatly disturb his nephew, it made life quite miserable for his sister. Indeed the poor lady had more troubles in these days than many a mother who had sent her son to the Front.

The thing she had most feared had come upon her; namely that Wallace should take up in the vulgar country fashion with one of the young women of the village. She had to confess to herself that of all the Orchard Glen girls the Lindsays were perhaps the least objectionable, and Christina's manner seemed always quiet and well bred. But at best the case was very dreadful. Suppose Wallace became infatuated, and Wallace had a habit of doing that, what might not happen? He might even want to settle down on a farm here and be married, and he with all Uncle William's wealth at his disposal if he would only make proper use of his opportunities!

There was just one fate that would be worse than remaining in Orchard Glen, Wallace might take a notion to enlist, and his Uncle's outbursts of temper were sufficient to drive the boy to do anything desperate.

She sat herself with all her might to the task of making him study hard, so that he would be ready to go back to college in the States and be away from all the temptations of both Christina and the war. But making Wallace study was a heavy task, especially now with his infatuation for the Lindsay girl growing stronger every day.

He was off almost every night with the village rabble. He joined the Presbyterian choir, and the Temperance Society, and went to Bible Class every Sunday afternoon. And the time that was left from these engagements, she suspected, he spent at the Lindsay farm.

Indeed her mind was not at rest concerning him even during the hours when he was supposed to be under the tutelage of Mr. Sinclair, though Miss Margaret was away. No one knew what Mr. Sinclair would do with a young man who came under his influence. Mrs. Sutherland wanted Wallace to be a good boy, of course, she confessed with tears in her eyes, and she trusted he would always be religious and go to church as she had taught him, but Mr. Sinclair never seemed to know where to stop in matters of religion, and might spoil all the worldly prospects of a young man like Wallace. There was that young Neil Lindsay. Her brother always said that he was the brightest young man that Orchard Glen had ever sent out, and that he would make his mark in the world, and Mr. Sinclair had spread his blighting influence over him and now he was studying to be a minister and would likely go away off into some dreadful heathen country and never be heard of again. And indeed Orchard Glen could furnish many another instance of his undoing a promising career. And who knew what he might do with Wallace? Of course ministers existed for the purpose of seeing that wayward sons kept in the path of rectitude, but they ought to know there should be temperance in all things. For while Mrs. Sutherland wanted her son to have sufficient religion to keep him from going wrong and doing anything disgraceful, she certainly did not want him to have so much that it would interfere with his getting on in the world. And Mr. Sinclair seemed to have no notion that getting on in the world mattered at all.

Wallace continued to be as gay and good-natured as ever in the face of his mother's tears and his uncle's temper. He would pull her ear playfully when she admonished him, and when Uncle Peter grew cross and grumpy he would go off whistling up the hill to the Lindsay farm.

As for Christina her golden dreams had all come true. She had at last obtained that one great requisite to happiness, a special cavalier of her own, to wait upon her and do her bidding. There was no more slipping home alone forlornly from meetings, no more coaxing John to take her to picnic or concert, no more fear of Gavin Grant seeing her home. And not only was her cavalier always at her side on these occasions, but he was the beau ideal of all the girls in Orchard Glen, as Christina was the envy. Her sweetheart was young and handsome and gallant and gay, indeed the very Dream Knight who had lingered so long just beyond the horizon and had ridden at last up to her door.

Mary wrote her delight in Christina's good fortune, hinting just a little surprise that she should have won a prize where Mary herself had failed. Ellen wrote cautioning her sister not to set her heart on any one for the present. Wallace was young and they would likely be parted, and people saved themselves a great deal of pain if they did not make plans for the future.

Christina was too busy to think much of the future, the present was quite sufficient. For besides all the joyous social events and home duties, like all the other women of the village she was called upon to take up the burden of Red Cross work.

The Red Cross Society proved as great a blessing in the divided ranks of Orchard Glen society, as it did on many another field of battle. It provided a place where the Methodists and Presbyterians could meet on common ground and it was wonderful to see the gradual drawing together of the forces that had been rent asunder by the skirl of old Lauchie's bagpipes It was very heartening to see Mrs. Henderson, Tremendous K.'s wife, and Mrs. Johnnie Brown, the wife of the Methodist Sunday School Superintendent working side by side. It was impossible to keep from speaking when you were sewing on the same hospital shirt and gradually people began to forget that there were Methodists and Presbyterians in the world, remembering only that there were Germany and the Allies. And when Tremendous K. was asked by the Red Cross Society to get up a concert that winter to raise Red Cross funds, Methodists and Baptists came flocking back to the choir and they all sang, "O, Canada" and "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," together as though there had never been a piper in Orchard Glen.

But these harmonious heights were not reached without many a rocky bit of road for the Red Cross Society to travel.

When the Society was formed, a number of women came out from Algonquin to organise, though Mrs. Johnnie Dunn did not see why in common sense they couldn't form a society themselves without a lot of women from town trolloping out to show them how to do something they all knew how to do already. Nevertheless the ladies from town came and they organised centres in Dalton and Greenwood and Orchard Glen and in other places all through the country.

The Orchard Glen Red Cross Society was to meet once a week in the basement of the Methodist Church, it being the largest available space in the village.

Mrs. Sutherland was made President and Mrs. Sinclair Treasurer; and young Mrs. Martin was Secretary, with Christina Lindsay to assist and take the minutes when the children were so bad that nobody could manage them. There was a large executive committee besides, but all these officials were quite irrelevant, for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was the real head and body and limbs of the society, and looked after all its business.

Then The Woman brought out the materials for sewing and knitting from Algonquin, and returned the garments when she thought they ought to be finished, and woe betide the unlucky Red Cross worker who was behind a day with a shirt or a pair of socks! For she decreed just how much was to be done each week, and no Prussian Militarist ever ruled with so high a hand.

"Just add another roll o' towelling to that order," she would command the Algonquin woman who was handing out her month's work, "there's a lot o' lazy lumps out at our corner that's sittin' pickin' their fingers for want o' somethin' to do."

The Society followed The Woman and the President was left far in the rear. Indeed Orchard Glen was rather proud of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. She was so clever and made such a name for them in Red Cross circles. The valentine episode was forgotten with other pre-war trivialities and she was reinstated in her old place of leadership.

Mrs. Sutherland presided at all Red Cross meetings with something of the air of a Queen ruling a much limited monarchy, over which a strenuous and efficient Prime Minister is wielding unlimited power. It was an unpleasant position and the rightful monarch might have made efforts to retain her authority but for the ambassador who kept peace between the Queen and the Prime Minister. The peacemaker was the last woman in Orchard Glen to be chosen for such a task, and yet a real peacemaker Joanna proved herself.

Joanna Falls would never have filled the position, but Joanna Boyd, as every one was discovering, was a new creature. She came back from her brief trip with Trooper, when the first contingent left for England. She had a wedding ring on her hand and a new light in her handsome eyes. And she was so gentle and kindly that those who did not stop to remember that love works miracles scarcely knew her.

She became Mrs. Sutherland's life-long friend on the very day the Red Cross Society was formed. It was after the meeting and people were standing about asking questions and delivering opinions, Mrs. Sutherland was still sitting on the platform with the visitors from town and called Joanna to her.

"Mrs. Boyd, my dear," she said pleasantly, "will you come here a moment?"

Joanna looked around in a moment's bewilderment, wondering who Mrs. Boyd was, and then the girls all laughed, and she remembered, and, blushing and looking very beautiful, she obeyed. Mrs. Sutherland introduced her as "Our war bride," and told how Trooper had gone away at the first call of his country. And the visitors asked her all about him, and Joanna, with tears in her handsome eyes, told how he was in the Princess Pats and expected to be in the fighting any day now. It was so wonderful to be able to talk about Trooper and speak out her grief without shame, that Joanna's voice grew very soft and her manner gentle. And a lady whose only son had also ridden away in the Princess Patricias' patted her hand and said it was the women who stayed at home who needed to be brave and that she had many to sympathise with her.

From that day Joanna became Mrs. Sutherland's right hand, she was always ready to do her bidding. Mrs. Sutherland would call across the room full of shirts and towels and whirring machines, "Mrs. Boyd, my dear, could you find me the back of this shirt? I must have mislaid it." And Joanna would run and wait on her hand and foot, Joanna who used to throw the dishwater so it would splash over into Mrs. Sutherland's yard!

And another miracle caused by Trooper's going to the war was the friendship that sprang up between Joanna and The Woman. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was a warrior at heart herself, and Trooper's leap to the first sound of the bugle thrilled her. She would have parted with a year's profits on milk before she would confess this, but she was really inordinately proud of her soldier and her feelings were displayed in her treatment of him. He had enough socks to foot every man in the Princess Patricias and there was never a soldier in the Canadian Army received such boxes of cake and candy as Trooper.

So his wife and his aunt became firm friends in their common love and pride. They sat together at sewing meetings, sharing scraps of each other's letters and the latest bit of news concerning the Princess Pats.

But Joanna had no easy task keeping peace in the Red Cross Society. The course of that blessed institution ran over a rough bed of rocks from the day of its inception.

There were a deal of rules about the fashioning of shirt collars and the hemming of sheets and the sewing on of buttons and the folding of bandages which The Woman characterised as tomfoolery. The President was for keeping the rules. She believed in system, she stated in her address to the Society, but Mrs. Johnnie Dunn believed only in her own system, and told every one to go ahead and do things the way they had always done and they'd be all right.

Then there was the knitting! Granny Minns, who could turn out her sock a day, and not omit a tittle of Mitty's scolding, said the Kitchener Toe was all humbug. She had knit for her son Tom all his life and her husband too, and was now knitting for Burke. And Burke said her socks were Just right, and what was good enough for Burke was good enough for the other soldiers!

She had an army of followers who were ready to second all she said. Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls and Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s mother were all superexcellent knitters, and Mrs. Brown who was no more afraid of Mrs. Sutherland than The Woman was, said right out in the meeting that the Kitchener Toe was jist some norms got up by the women in the town who hadn't enough to do, and had never learned to knit, anyhow! And Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s wife took to walking home together after the meetings, just to discuss the foolish fashions of some women like Mrs. Sutherland!

Mrs. Sinclair asked for one of the leaders to come out from town and tell about the Kitchener Toe. The lady came and they had an extra meeting in the basement of the Methodist church, and passed around tea and cake and pie afterward. The lady spoke of the horrors of Trench Feet, and showed how the wrong sort of knitting would be sure to produce it. But as Granny Minns never went anywhere, and Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls went only to church, and Mrs. Brown was too deaf to hear, and Mrs. Tremendous K. told her it was just all dishwater anyway, the talk had very little effect.

So a secret society was formed, of which Joanna and Mrs. Sutherland were the leaders. They met at night with drawn blinds and locked doors, and ripped out the uneven and condemned knitting and knit it up again. And before long Orchard Glen was mentioned in the Algonquin papers as the one place that always sent in perfect socks. And a photographer came out from town and took a picture of Granny Minns, as the oldest knitter of faultless socks, and it was put in the paper and Orchard Glen was held up as an example for the countryside and was the envy of the whole knitting public.

The excitement over Red Cross troubles during the winter almost made folk forget the war. The terrible onrush of the enemy had been stopped at the Marne, and, lulled by an over-censored press, the public settled down to the belief that when the Spring came the Germans would be forced back across the Rhine and the war would be over. Britain was safe anyway, every one knew that. For there was the Navy and that, as every one knew, was invincible.

The first contingent had gone; English and Scottish reservists like Burke had left, and many another Old Country man had volunteered, going back to give the old land a helping hand. Then there were the gay lads full of adventure like Trooper, up and away at the first glad chance of looking into "the bright face of danger," and some serious minded ones also, knowing that a terrible danger menaced humanity and they must stand as a wall between. But the great mass of young Canada was as yet undisturbed, and while the press could have called them with one bugle sound, the press sent them back to their work and their play, and so they lingered undisturbed.

Wallace had to part with Christina at Christmas time, a consummation that had been devoutly looked forward to by his mother. He left her with many promises to write and to be home for Easter. Christina had scarcely time to miss him for Sandy and Neil came home and Mary and Hugh McGillivray came up from Port Stewart and the house rang with the good times they all had together. And Grandpa could scarcely be persuaded to go to bed lest he miss some of Jimmie's and Sandy's antics.

On Christmas day a letter came from the two absent ones. They were invited to take dinner with some friends in Prairie Park, people who had heard Neil preach when he was in the west, and they declared he would be one of Canada's leading preachers some day.

Allister wrote a longer letter than usual to Christina. There was an entirely new note in it.

"This war has knocked things endways for me I'm afraid," he said. "You needn't say anything to John or the boys yet, but if everything keeps rolling down hill as fast as it's been going there will be no college for any one next year. So perhaps you were just as wise to stay home. I didn't know just how good you were to let Ellen come till she told me all about it. It's been rough on Ellen and you've been a brick to let her come. But if things don't get too rotten we'll win out yet and make the world sit up and take notice. Ellen's got the craze to go nursing and she wants to start right away. Only she thinks she ought to go home. If she trains maybe she'll be going overseas if this war doesn't show some signs of ending."

It was not at all like Allister, and Christina was filled with anxiety. What if Sandy and Neil had to be stopped in their college course? And Allister had furnished many a comfort on the farm that made life easier for them all and especially for John and had hinted that there might be a car in the Spring. If his money all went with the war, there would be never again any chance for her. But she did not worry over herself, only wrote to Ellen urging her to take her nurse's course by all means, for everything was quite all right at home.

When the pleasant rush of Christmas was over she was rather surprised to find that life was not so dull as she had expected. She missed Wallace, but not quite so much as she felt she should. She grew impatient with herself and began to wonder if she were different from other girls. Mary lived for Hugh, and Ellen's days had arranged themselves around Bruce's coming and going, and she could not but ask why she was not as joyous over Wallace's preference for her as she had expected to be.

When he was away from her he seemed to be her very ideal Knight, so handsome and brave and good, but when he was in her presence, he was just a very ordinary, pleasant young man, with no halo of romance about him. She was rather disappointed in herself. She wondered if she were of a dissatisfied nature whom nothing could please.

And then she had no sooner settled down to a lonely winter than suddenly Wallace came back. He came up to see her on the very evening of his return, to explain his sudden appearance and tell her all the tragic sum of his experiences.

It appeared that his hopes were all blasted; his uncle had behaved in a shameful manner. In spite of the fact that Wallace had almost studied himself ill all Fall, Uncle William simply refused to let him go back to college.

"But your examination!" cried Christina in dismay. "You passed that, didn't you?"

Wallace had neglected to explain about the examination. One paper, the Latin prose, was quite beyond belief. The man who set it was crooked, there was no doubt about it, and anyway Wallace had always felt that Mr. Sinclair was very old-fashioned in his methods. A fellow just couldn't learn under him.

Christina's heart was striving to excuse him, declaring that he had been ill-used, while her head was protesting that he was only a spoiled boy who had wasted his opportunities, and was now ready to lay the blame at any door but his own.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she declared with real sympathy. "And what will you do now?"

"I think I'll enlist," he declared despondently, sinking down into the depths of the soft couch, one of the comforts that Allister's money had made possible. "There isn't anything else for me to do. I've had such rotten luck."

He glanced at Christina as he spoke and was rather disconcerted to see that she made no opposition. His mother always wept and wrung her hands, and made any concession at the merest suggestion of his going to the Front, and he had supposed that Christina would, at least, show some agitation.

But instead there came a sudden light into her eyes.

"Oh," she declared, "it must be grand to be a man and go away and fight for freedom!"

Wallace raised his head and stared at her.

"I don't believe you'd care a mite if I were killed!" he cried reproachfully.

Christina's eyes dropped to the grey sock she was knitting.

"Oh, I—I didn't mean that!" she cried apologetically. "I—I just thought maybe you wanted to go."

"I can't leave mother," he declared, "that's one sure thing. And another is that I'm going to give up the University. I never wanted to go anyway. I think I'll go into business, or perhaps I'll farm. I'm going to stay home for a week or so anyway and talk things over with Uncle Peter."

He seemed to forget his troubles after this resolution and became his old gay self, and Christina's head gave way to her heart and she was altogether happy that he had come home.

But there was not much happiness or comfort in the red house with the pillars. Dr. McGarry had helped his sister indulge they boy and now he was angry with him for turning out the exact product to be expected from their indulgence. The Doctor stormed and scolded and Mrs. Sutherland wept. Wallace threatened to enlist. Uncle Peter said it was the best thing he could do and then, when things were really getting quite intolerable and Wallace was packing his trunk for parts unspecified, fate intervened once more and he was taken down with what the Doctor said was a very heavy cold but which Mrs. Sutherland declared might easily develop into pneumonia.

Mitty Wright, who did Mrs. Sutherland's washing, reported that the way his mother waited on the young gentleman and babied him was a caution, and the Doctor was nearly as bad, running up and down stairs, scolding one minute and giving medicine the next. The patient responded to the good nursing and before the middle of January he was able to be outdoors again. He convalesced very happily, especially after he was able to walk as far as the Lindsay hill. Uncle William showed no sign of repentance, though Mrs. Sutherland told him how near to death's door the boy had been, but Wallace did not seem disturbed. The evil provided by Uncle Peter's war-distemper was sufficient unto the day without worrying over Uncle William. The old man would come round yet, Wallace felt sure, and meanwhile he was having a very pleasant time and Orchard Glen with Christina in it was a very delightful place.

Jimmie came stamping in one wild boisterous evening when February had began to shout across the country from hill to hill and turn the world into a whirling whiteness.

It was Friday evening and he was earlier than usual as Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had given him a lift more than half way in her cutter. And she had so much Red Cross truck piled into it, he complained, that his feet stuck out into the drifts all the way home.

He had stopped at the postoffice for the mail, and there was a letter from Neil. His regular Tuesday letter had come as usual and a second one was rather surprising.

Christina ran with it into the sitting room where her mother was sewing overtime on a couple of hospital shirts that The Woman said had to be ready for Monday, and not a minute later.

"A letter from Neily," Mrs. Lindsay said, stopping her work and taking off her spectacles to await the reading. "What will he be wanting to say at this time o' the week?"

Christina tore it open and went to the window to catch the last light of the short winter day. The letter started as usual with the weekly budget of college news. Every one was speeding up, now, for Spring and exams, had just turned the last corner and were coming straight at them. Sandy's new room was something superfine and much warmer than the last, but board wasn't getting any better. They were all longing for a taste of Mother's biscuits and Christine's pies. And then the letter fell back into reminiscences of old days, as Neil's letters had a habit of doing.

"Do you remember, Mother, when we were little and any danger threatened, I was always the shy one who ran and got behind your skirts? And do you remember you were always saying to John and me, and especially to me, 'Lads must be brave?' It was not so bad, I remember your saying, if Ellen or Mary were to take fright when a stranger came to the house, or Mr. Sinclair called to hear our Catechism, but it was a real disgrace for a boy. 'Lads must be brave' was your slogan. And many a time it has braced me in hard places since. Out on the prairie, for instance, when it was deadly lonesome, and the work seemed to be no use, and down here in the city when I gave out my text the night I preached in Hamilton Street Church, and looked up and saw old Professor Johnstone sitting straight in front of me, looking at his boots. I tell you, Mother, the consolations of religion were not so upholding at such moments as your 'Lads must be brave.'

"And how it has been 'dingin' in my ears these days to fairly deeve me," as Tremendous K. would say. "The bugle calls it every morning when the boys march out on the campus. I see it in every headline of the paper; I hear it in every call for men, and I'm afraid I haven't wanted to listen. I have wanted my life to run along a smooth road, the one I have planned for myself; a fine church with a big salary, plenty of time to study and a little to travel, and you sitting in the Manse pew with the best silk dress in the church. That has been my programme. But the pleasant road was not the way the Master went, and the servant cannot choose. He trod the hard way, and there is not the slightest doubt in my mind which way He wants me to go. I know you are guessing already at what I am going to ask of you. And now I must turn upon you with your own slogan and say, 'Mothers must be brave!' Oh, how brave and gallant they must be in these days, only they can know. But I know you, Mother, well enough to tell that you will say yes when I ask you to be brave enough to let me enlist. It is not a matter of choice with me, I am constrained. Woe is me if I go not to Belgium!"

"I wish I could say this is all I am asking you to give up. Is it too much that we ask you to let Sandy go, too? He is more eager than I and saw his duty clearly from the first. We both realise that yours is the hardest part. But your sons couldn't be slackers. And after all the war may not last so long, and we'll be home before you know it. Sandy will likely be a general, and who knows but I may get to be a lance-corporal!"

There was more in the same light strain and a note for Christina from Sandy, saying he was taking the officers' course and she must remember when he came home to say "sir" to him when she addressed him.

But Christina did not read the letter through at first. When the full meaning of it burst upon her she turned to her mother, expecting to see tears, but instead her mother's small bent figure had grown suddenly straight and her eyes were shining with a strange mingling of pride and anguish.

"Oh, Mother!" cried Christina, "oh, don't I wish I were a boy!"

"Whisht, whisht!" cried her mother, "I could ill spare you, Christine, I can ill spare the lads." And then she rose and went quietly into the bedroom and shut the door, and Christina knew that her mother had gone for strength to bear this trial to the source of all power.

When Wallace came up the hill the next evening, he found the Lindsays in a state of subdued excitement. Christina's cheeks were crimson and her eyes shone until she looked positively handsome.

"Sandy and Neil are both going to the war," she cried half in dismay, half in exultation.

"Are they really?" asked Wallace. "They're lucky. This beastly breakdown of mine has spoiled all my chances. My, I'd like to be in their boots!"

Christina felt a sudden rising of resentment. "I don't think they are a bit lucky," she burst forth. "You surely don't call it lucky to go to the front and get badly wounded, and perhaps killed?"

Wallace smiled a superior smile. "There's not much danger of that. The boys won't get over there for a year at best, and the war will likely be all over by that time. Germany can't stand this strain for many more months."

Christina had a distinct feeling of disappointment. She had wanted Wallace to admire the boys for all they were giving up, and he was calling them lucky, and maintaining an envious attitude as though they were off on a free trip to Europe. She changed the subject hastily and he did not refer to the war again that evening.

Jimmie and Uncle Neil alone were filled with rejoicing. Uncle Neil felt an exultation that he was at pains to hide. He said little, for his sister's anguished eyes forbade that he voice the pride that was consuming him, but he sat up half the night playing his fiddle, and for the next few days he went about whistling all the warlike songs he knew.

The news was shouted to Grandpa, along with extracts from Neil's letter, before he went to bed. He made little comment, merely saying that "they were fine lads and would do their duty." But Christina knew he was deeply grieved that Neil should be turned aside from the ministry. He expressed no sorrow but he did not sing the Hindmost Hymn and the next morning at family worship he read,

"Why art thou cast down, oh, my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?"

CHAPTER XI

"LAST LEAVE"

The Lindsay boys did not get home on leave until the Easter vacation, for they were taking their military training along with their university work. John drove down to Silver Creek Crossing to meet them, for the roads to town were almost impassable. The home-coming of the boys had always been the great event in their family life, but it was a far more wonderful thing this time; it had something of the flavour of heroes returning from the war.

Christina and Jimmie met them at the road gate under the moaning poplars, where the wind whipped her skirts about her and blew her hair into her eyes.

Their mother and Uncle Neil were half way down the lane, and even Grandpa had hobbled to the edge of the garden to meet the soldier boys home on their first leave. Christina had known they would be in khaki, but when a trim young private of artillery in jingling spurs and bandolier, and a smart young subaltern in shining boots and straps and belt and what not leaped from the democrat and charged upon her; instead of running to meet them, their sister put her head down against the gate post and burst into tears. Somehow the sight of Sandy in the uniform of his country's service had overwhelmed Christina with a sense of the great gulf that had yawned between them. Sandy and Neil were gone and there were two soldier-men in their place. Manlike, they did not understand her tears.

"Goodness, Christine!" cried Sandy, jovially, "if you're sorry we've come home, we can turn right back if you'd rather."

"You silly thing—I—I'm not sorry," gasped Christina; kissing them and turning from tears to laughter. "I—I forgot you'd be in uniform."

"Well, cheer up," said Neil comfortingly, "I'll admit that the sight of Sandy's calves is enough to make anybody weep, but he'll fatten up next summer—here's Mother!"—and he ran up the lane at a breakneck pace.

Certainly Sandy's calves were not any too stout. He looked like a whip handle dressed up, Uncle Neil said as he circled round him admiringly. But he was as neat and smart as a whip, too, even if he were thin and even John could not hide his admiration. And as for Grandpa, he had to take refuge in Gaelic exclamations to express himself.

The mother spoke just one hint of her regrets as they sat around the supper table, Neil at her right hand. She smoothed his rough khaki sleeve, examining the cloth closely, and pronounced it a fine comfortable piece that would wear well.

"It's the only cloth to wear these days, Mother," Neil said. "Don't you think so?"

She shook her head. "I would be hoping to see you in a black coat, Neily," she said softly.

"That'll come later," said Neil comfortingly. "You think I did right, don't you?" he continued, anxiously.

"Oh, yes, yes, indeed, you did right, and I'm proud that you will be wanting to go," she declared bravely. And Neil's heart was content.

These were stirring days in Orchard Glen while the boys were home. All the boys and girls gathered at the Lindsays just as they used to. But there was one family missing. The McKenzies were absent, and Uncle Neil never sang the "Standard on the Braes o' Mar" any more.

There was great fun with Sandy and Neil, for Sandy was an officer and his elder brother a private, and it was impossible for them to remember that Neil's old air of authority with Sandy was now quite out of place. The private was always saluting the subaltern with tremendous gravity, and the next moment treating him in a manner that deserved a court-martial.

Jimmie followed his soldier brothers about in a passion of admiration. And one day the ambition that was burning him up burst forth.

"Say, what do you think?" he cried excitedly, coming in with the afternoon mail. "Tommy Holmes has enlisted, and he's a month younger than I am."

"Then he's a silly youngster, and ought to be kept washing dishes to punish him," said Neil sharply. "No boy under eighteen has any right to enlist!"

"I'll be eighteen next Fall!" declared Jimmie defiantly.

"Which means you've barely turned seventeen, so hold your tongue," said Sandy.

Jimmie saluted with mock meekness. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," he said, with a great show of nervousness.

Uncle Neil laughed uproariously, but brother Neil looked serious, and when milking time came he took Jimmie aside in the barn.

"You're worrying Mother, with your talk about enlisting," he said. "Can't you see that, and be quiet."

"I want to go as much as you do," said Jimmie stubbornly.

"I don't want to go at all," declared Neil, and his younger brother stared. "And neither would you if you would stop and think what a fearful thing this war is. I'm going because it is my duty, and so is Sandy. It's your duty to stay at home and finish the education John and Allister are giving you, and look after Mother.

"I don't want to go back to school," grumbled Jimmie, "Not after I've passed next summer, anyway."

"John doesn't want to stay here on the farm. He'd like to go to the Front, but he stays. You are young and you will be needed later. So be a man and do your duty. All the soldiers aren't going info the trenches."

But his advice had little effect on Jimmie, the war fever was in his veins. He gave his promise, however, to wait until he was eighteen, and Neil had to be content. But he was restless and fretful under the restriction, he felt quite sure that the war would all be over long before that date and his great opportunity would be gone.

Meanwhile Orchard Glen was slowly waking up at the call for men. Tommy Holmes rushed into khaki after the first glorious sight of the Lindsay boys in the village street, and Tremendous K.'s eldest son followed. And Christina had the heavy task of writing to Ellen to tell her that Bruce had given up his prospects of being a Doctor, and was enlisted with the University corps. Mr. Sinclair's only son, who was a minister in a neighbouring town, came home to say farewell, dressed in his chaplain's uniform, and the little village lived in a whirl of excitement.

The Red Cross Society was busy night and day making socks for the boys who had left, with the result that they each one got far more than any young man with only two feet could possibly wear.

All this stir, and the sight of so much khaki coming and going in the village had a bad effect upon Dr. McGarry. Every day he took the war more grievously to heart. He and Mr. Holmes took different sides as to the conduct of the spring campaign, and after Tommy enlisted it was not safe for the Doctor to go into the store, so high did feeling run.

And at home the Doctor was even worse, until poor Mrs. Sutherland's life was scarcely worth living. Wallace unwittingly brought down a torrent of wrath upon his head one day when the Spring Drive was on and prospects were looking black. It was an inopportune moment for Wallace to broach the subject upon which he had been thinking deeply for many days.

"Uncle," he said, as they sat down to their pretty tea-table in the sun-flooded dining-room. "I'd like to go on a farm this Spring. That Ford place below the mill is for sale, and the Browns are talking of buying it. You've always wanted to retire on a farm and I could start the work and——"

He paused, interrupted by his mother's dismayed exclamation. "Wallace! You with your prospects to settle down here and be a common farmer! Surely you don't mean it!"

"Elinor, don't be foolish!" snapped her brother, looking up from a dreary paragraph concerning a British reverse that was attempting to appear as a strategic move. "You might be glad to have him a common farmer, as you call it. And as for his prospects, I don't see what they are, to tell you the truth."

"Don't you agree with me, Uncle?" cried Wallace ingratiatingly. "These old chaps here farm like Noah before the flood. I'd like to show some of them an up-to-date way of managing stock." But his uncle was not capable of agreeing with anybody. His sister's tears forbade that he put his duty before his nephew, and it fairly broke the old man's heart that Wallace needed any one to suggest that he enlist. In times of peace he would have sympathised with the boy's desire to be a farmer, and he approved highly of Christina, but just now he could listen to nothing but the cry of Belgium.

"What's the use of talking a lot of rot!" he burst forth irritably. "You needn't ask my advice about farming! Before you'd get your crop off your farm next Fall the Kaiser of Germany would have everything to say about it. How will you like it when you have to pass over most of your profits to him and his War Lords? Here we are planning and scheming and all the time we're living in a Fool's Paradise, with the enemy at our door! We are marrying and giving in marriage, while the floods are pouring in upon us! Yes, go farming to-morrow if you like! It'll only be for a few months anyway. The Philistines are upon us!"

Matters were always serious when the Doctor took to quoting Scripture, and Mrs. Sutherland reached protectingly for her cut-glass spoon tray as his fist came down with a crash upon the table.

The result of the unhappy episode was that Wallace tramped sulkily up to his room after supper, and when his distressed mother went up to comfort him, she found him packing his suit-case once more. He was going to enlist. This was the end, he could stand no more, he declared.

"Oh, Wallace, Wallace, you will surely break your widowed mother's heart," declared Mrs. Sutherland in despair. She wept and pleaded. She made extravagant promises. She would write to Uncle William, she would even go to see him if he thought best, she would not urge him to go back to college if he did not want to. She would write Uncle William about the farm and she would try to make Uncle Peter be more reasonable if only Wallace would promise that he would not break her heart by enlisting. Wallace was a warm-hearted boy who could not bear to look upon distress. So he promised and his mother put aside all her high hopes and wrote humbly and pleadingly to her brother. Wallace was really not strong enough to study, the confinement seemed to impair his health. Peter agreed with her there. He would like to go farming, there was an excellent chance to buy or rent a place right near the village. Peter was interested in it and declared that he would like to retire and go on this farm some day. They felt that Wallace's health would improve if he had outdoor life, etc.

Whatever the letter contained it proved the key to unlock Uncle William's closed money box. He was not at all a hard man and his sister's distress moved him. He wrote that he was glad that the young cub had sense enough to farm, for it was no use trying to educate him. But he thought that a military training would be good for a young fellow's health. However, if he would rather feed the pigs and clean out the stable than go to college, all right, let him, that was probably his proper place. The words stung but they were covered by a most wonderful cheque, with instructions to Uncle Peter to see that the youngster did not throw it away.

Mrs. Sutherland was relieved even in the midst of her bitter disappointment. She had had such high ambitions for Wallace and now there seemed nothing ahead of him but the life of a common farmer. He would marry Christina Lindsay and probably never go further from home than Algonquin and William would give all his money to Tom's girls who had more now than they needed. But there was no alternative, and when she thought of his enlisting she was thankful that there was something to keep him at home. The recruiting officers would not trouble a young man on a farm.

From that time Christina noticed a marked change in Mrs. Sutherland's attitude toward her. From being coldly aloof she became warmly gracious and treated her second only to Joanna. Christina accepted the change gratefully. It had always been a trial, this disapproval of Wallace's mother. She ought to be very happy, she told herself, when she scolded herself for still longing to be away. Wallace would always be in Orchard Glen now, the Ford place had good barns and a fine old house, and who knew?—her heart beat fast at the thought, but there was no thrill of joy accompanying. Some subtle change had come over Christina since Sandy had enlisted. It seemed as if there could be no other course for a young man now in these days of agony and blood. Her heart was away with her brothers in their high endeavour and could be content with nothing less.

It was a beautiful Autumn day when Sandy and Neil came home for their last leave, as bright and happy as though they were going for a pleasure trip round the world. Hugh MacGillivray brought Mary home to say good-bye to them, for Mary was needing special care these days and could not travel alone.

Grandpa read the 91st Psalm at worship the morning before they left, and he paused and looked at the two young soldiers as he read the words. "Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night nor for the arrow that flieth by day ... a thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand but it shall not come nigh thee."

Christina listened and wondered and a strange new doubt crept into her soul. How could she believe that promise, knowing that so many brave boys had fallen before the arrow that flieth by day and that these dear ones might meet a similar fate? Were the words of that psalm merely beautiful sounding phrases that meant nothing? She glanced at her mother to see if she could read a similar doubt there; but Mrs. Lindsay's face was rapt, as though she had seen a new vision of the psalm's meaning, and Christina was puzzled and disheartened.

She held up her head bravely, standing at the garden gate to wave them good-bye as they drove down the lane in the golden sunlight. Then she ran down the lane after them, stumbling a little when a mist came over her eyes. She even ran down the road, gallantly waving her apron as long as Sandy waved his cap, feeling glad that he could not see the tears that were streaming down her face. And she made sure that the democrat had disappeared behind the hill before she gave way and sank down sobbing on the dusty grass of the roadside.

She went back to the desolate home, she must not linger over her grief for she was needed there as comforter. Her mother had disappeared into the sanctuary of her room where she was seeking strength from the source that had never failed her in all life's trials and would hold her up even in this great agony. Grandpa was sitting fumbling helplessly with his hymn book and arguing with himself. She could hear him whispering, "Be not far from me, O Lord, for trouble is near!" and she patted his bowed white head gently as she passed. Uncle Neil had fled to the barn, and Mitty was crying over the wash-tub in the shed. Christina went furiously to work, as her refuge from tears. It would never do to break down and be no use when Sandy was gone away to fight for her!

But work would not last all day. It was finished in the evening and Wallace came up in his usual gay spirits to report progress on his new farm, where everything was running in the most up-to-date manner. But Christina was too sad to even pretend to be interested. She could not rejoice over a new gasoline engine that was to do all the work, when Sandy and Neil were to be made part of the cruel engine of war. And for the first time Wallace found her uninterested and consequently uninteresting.