“Dead!�
“Murdered. His sister wrote to me from Switzerland. He came home once on a furlough, and she asked him if the tales were true about brutalities to conquered people. He said: ‘I hope those things will not be required of me; I am a human being before I am a German.’
“A month later came the news that he had been shot for refusing to obey orders. She learned the details later from a comrade. An old Frenchman had fired on a drunken German soldier who insulted his daughter, and Kuno was one of a squad ordered to shoot a dozen citizens in retaliation—men and women and children drawn by lot. Kuno refused. He was put in front of the firing squad and was shot by his own comrades.�
“I am so sorry,� Anne said softly.
“I am so glad,� Black Mayo said, with a tender smile. “Death was his only gate to freedom from the wicked tyranny of Prussia.�
“Old Prussia’s beat at last, thanks be!� said Patsy. “What will the Allies do to the Germans, Cousin Mayo?�
“Say to them, as Julius Cæsar said to the Germans two thousand years ago: ‘Go back whence you came, repair the damage you have done, and give hostages to keep the peace for the future!’�
“Peace!� said Anne. “Your doves are birds of peace now, Cousin Mayo.�
“And again they find a deluged world.�
“Oh, sound gladder, Cousin Mayo!� cried Dick. “We’ve won the war; and—thanks to Albert and me helping this year—we walloped the girls in garden work and took the silver cup. Oh, it’s a fine old world!� He danced a jig on the roadside.