"What will you be if you do pass?" inquired his father. "A lieutenant?"
"Well," said Harold, "a second-lieutenant."
"I wish I could enlist," sighed Bob.
"Huh!" snorted his older brother. "You can't enlist. What military training have you had? And besides, you're only seventeen; they wouldn't take you."
The Cook family were seated at the dinner table, mother, father, and three children, the two boys referred to above and a young daughter, Louise, just thirteen years of age. Congress had that day declared war on Germany, and naturally that was the one thing in every one's mind. Crowds in front of the newspaper offices had greeted the news from Washington with wild enthusiasm, patriotic parades had been organized, and from almost every house and office streamed the Stars and Stripes.
Bob Cook had been among the crowds, and his young mind and heart were fired with patriotism and enthusiasm. A company of soldiers from the Thirty-ninth Infantry called out the week before had caused him to cheer and hurl his cap high in the air, while all the time he envied the men in khaki.
"I hate to think of you enlisting, Harold," said Mrs. Cook sadly.
"Why?" demanded Harold earnestly. "Don't you think it is my duty to offer my services to my country! I'm free; no one is dependent upon me."
"I know," agreed his mother, "but somehow I don't like to have my boy go over to France and be killed. Let some one else go."
"Suppose every one said that," exclaimed Harold. "We shouldn't have much of an army and our country wouldn't be very well defended, would it?"