“Yes.”
“Are we in it?” he asked, after a pause.
“No.”
“We should—be,” he said. “There’s some reason why we should, but I seem to—have forgotten it.”
Day by day he grew stronger; day by day his memory returned to him, and he brooded over his recollections. For hours he would lie with closed eyes—thinking. It was the first quiet he had ever known; the first opportunity ever forced upon him to think. He remembered Major Craig.
“Would you like to read to me?” he asked, one day.
“I’d love to, son. What shall I read?”
“I wish you’d get a history of the United States—the best one there is. I’d like you to read that.”
So his mother sat by his bedside and read to him the history of his country, and when she laid down the book he considered what she had read, and pondered over the significance of it. He had been vaguely familiar with the history of the nation, but only vaguely. Now he was meeting his country for the first time, and groping for an understanding of it. Major Craig had asked him if he loved his country.... He fancied he had answered that question when he imagined it invaded as Belgium had been invaded. Now, day by day, he was learning why he should love his country; what his country meant, why it existed, why it had prospered, what his country was giving to him as one of its citizens. The United States was emerging from chaos in his mind, assuming a distinct entity, a character.... It was a lovable character. As he lay there, listening to the story of its life, Potter Waite was falling in love—he was falling in love with his country and his country’s flag.
His mother understood something of what was passing in his mind. It made her glad, for there was promise in it.... One day, following the completion of the history, she brought a thin little book.