She is not a dull woman either or hard of heart. It has not got to her yet—that's all! I cannot be hard on her in my judgment, for it did not come to me all at once, either.
When I saw the first troops going away, I wondered how their mothers let them go, and I made up my mind that I would not let my boy go,—I was so glad he was only seventeen,—for hope was strong in our hearts that it might be over before he was of military age. It was the Lusitania that brought me to see the whole truth. Then I saw that we were waging war on the very Princes of Darkness, and I knew that morning when I read the papers, I knew that it would be better—a thousand times better—to be dead than to live under the rule of people whose hearts are so utterly black and whose process of reasoning is so oxlike—they are so stupidly brutal. I knew then that no man could die better than in defending civilization from this ghastly thing which threatened her!
Soon after that I knew, without a word being said, that my boy wanted to go—I saw the seriousness come into his face, and knew what it meant. It was when the news from the Dardanelles was heavy on our hearts, and the newspapers spoke gravely of the outlook.
One day he looked up quickly and said, "I want to go—I want to help the British Empire—while there is a British Empire!"
And then I realized that my boy, my boy, had suddenly become a man and had put away childish things forever.
I shall always be glad that the call came to him, not in the intoxication of victory, but in the dark hour of apparent defeat.