“‘Well,’ he said, ‘there is a man out in the shop just fitted for it. I can’t pronounce his name, but I will bring him in.’
“He did; a great black-haired man who looked me right in the eye as I like to have people do.
“‘How long have you been in this country?’ I asked.
“‘Ten years. You may not remember, but I came in the ship with you; in the steerage, with my wife and two boys.’
“It flashed into my mind at once; this was what America had done for the man. I smiled as I thought of the flat-faced woman who wanted to look like the Goddess of Liberty, and the man whose faith in America was such that he told her this dream could come true.
“The man more than made good. It is wonderful how things happen in this country. Those two black-eyed boys were at school with my boy and played on the football team with him. They were all three to go to college together.
“Then you know how, before we entered the war, the women organized to do Red Cross work? One day my wife came home and told me how a Polish woman had made the most wonderful talk before her society. Before we knew it America had entered the war, and we were all at it. You couldn’t keep my boy here. He volunteered the first week after war was declared, and these two black-haired boys belonging to my foreman volunteered with him, and they all went over the sea to fight for America.
“I had not seen their mother, and I was curious to see what she looked like after American competence and success had been rubbed in. We had a big parade in our town during one of the Liberty Loan drives, and there was one division of women who carried service flags. I stood in the window of my club watching the parade, and as it happened within six feet of me on the sidewalk stood John, my foreman. I did not laugh this time, nor was he shamed into silence for what he thought of his wife.
“Oh, how that war did stir up and level the elements of American society! There passed before us in parade, side by side, my wife with a service flag of one star and John’s wife with two stars in her flag! And as they passed they turned and looked at us. My wife told me later that they had been talking as they marched. My wife had asked her comrade if she did not feel dreadfully to think of her two great boys far away in France. And the woman with the flat, homely face had answered:
“‘No, I feel glorified to think that I, the poor immigrant woman, can offer my boys in part payment for what America has done for me and my people.’