And then, early the next morning, the morning of the 19th of June, the knuckles of his valet on the door woke Jim from his slumber and a voice through the panels murmured:
“Very sorry, sir, but you are wanted on the telephone, sir—it's your regiment.”
That was the way the Paul Reveres of 1916 summoned the troops to arms.
Mr. Minute-Man Dyckman sat on the edge of his bed in his silk pajamas with the telephone-receiver at his ear, and yawned: “H'lo.... Who is it?... What is it?... Oh, it's you, sergeant.... Yes?... No!... For God's sake!... I'll get out right away.”
“What's the matter? Is the house on fire?” Kedzie gasped from her pillow, half-awake and only half-afraid, so prettily befuddled she was with sleep. She would have made a picture if Jim had had eyes to see her as she struggled to one elbow and thrust with her other hand her curls back into her nightcap, all askew. Her gown was sliding over one shoulder down to her elbow and up to one out-thrust knee.
Jim put away the telephone and pondered a moment.
Kedzie caught at his arm. “What's the matter? Why don't you tell me!”
He spoke with a boyish pride of war and a husbandly solemnity: “The President has called out the National Guard. We're to mobilize to-day and get to the border as soon as we can. They hope that our regiment will be the first to move.”