He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”
A shy little wife of a preacher wrote the most successful novel ever written, and brought on the war; and a banker’s daughter gave it its noblest voice.
No wonder that women were getting out of hand, and questioning the ancient pretense of the male; calling his bluff. That song chanted everywhere to the forward-marching tune of “John Brown’s Body” started a new current of volunteers and brought the final resolution to many a hesitant patriot. And Patty was proud again to claim relationship to the daughter of money and of song.
But the Battle Hymn seemed to harrow the soul of her boy Junior. There were dark secrets back of his eyes. Patty would fling her arms about him to shut out the Lorelei-appeal of the bugles that rang through the streets calling, calling. She tried to hide from his eyes the uniforms that shamed his civilian clothes. And she would plead:
“Don’t leave me, Junior boy! Don’t leave your poor old mother! I’ve got a right to keep one son, haven’t I? Promise me you won’t go.”
He would pet her and kiss her, but never quite give the pledge she implored.
Then one day while Patty was standing at the window and her husband was reading in a newspaper the story of the heroisms and tragedies of his neighbors’ sons, Patty cried out:
“Mist’ RoBards, look! Come quick!”
He ran to her side and peered through the glass.
Below was a youth in uniform clinging to the iron fence, waveringly. RoBards said: