The hearts of the people were stirred. They saw a faithful reproduction of what the boys would go through in training, what they might endure in the trenches, and particularly what the Red Cross was doing for soldiers under similar conditions elsewhere.
As though spellbound, Uncle Jabez sat through the long reel. The appeal at the end, with the Red Cross nurse in the hospital ward, the dying soldier’s head pillowed upon her breast while she whispered the comfort into his dulling ear that his mother would have whispered——
Ah, it brought the audience to its feet at the “fadeout”—and in tears! It was so human, so real, so touching, that there was little audible comment as they filed out to the soft playing of the organ.
But Uncle Jabez burst out helplessly when they were in the street. He wiped the tears from the hard wrinkles of his old face with frankness and his voice was husky as he declared:
“Niece Ruth! I’m converted to your Red Cross. Dern it all! you kin have ev’ry cent of my share of the profit on that picter—ev’ry cent!”
CHAPTER VII—ON THE WAY
Tom Cameron came home on a furlough from the officers’ training camp the day that the boys of the first draft departed from Cheslow. It stabbed the hearts of many mothers and fathers with a quick pain to see him march through the street so jaunty and debonair.
“Why, Tommy!” his sister cried. “You’re a man!”
“Lay off! Lay off!” begged her twin, not at all pleased. “You might have awakened to the fact that I was out of rompers some years ago. Your eyesight has been bad.”
Indeed, he was rather inclined to ignore her and “flock with his father,” as Helen put it to Ruth. The father and son had something in common now that the girl could not altogether understand. They sat before the cold grate in the library, their chairs drawn near to each other, and smoked sometimes for an hour without saying a word.