"God, ma, his—is awful! Please—you make us ashamed—all of us! I don't know what to say. Esther, come quiet her—for God's sake quiet her!"
From her place in the sobbing circle, Esther Kantor crossed to kneel beside her mother.
"Mamma, darling, you're killing yourself! What if every family went on this way? You want papa to come in and find us all crying? Is this the way you want Leon to spend his last hour with us—"
"O God—God!"
"I mean his last hour until he comes back, darling. Didn't you just hear him say, darling, it may be by spring?"
"'Spring'—'spring'—never no more springs for me—"
"Just think, darling, how proud we should be. Our Leon, who could so easily have been excused, not even to wait for the draft."
"It's not too late yet—please, Leon—"
"Our Roody and Boris both in camp, too, training to serve their country. Why, mamma, we ought to be crying for happiness! As Leon says, surely the Kantor family who fled out of Russia to escape massacre should know how terrible slavery can be. That's why we must help our boys, mamma, in their fight to make the world free. Right, Leon?"—trying to smile with her red-rimmed eyes.
"We've got no fight with no one! Not a child of mine was ever raised to so much as lift a finger against no one. We've got no fight with no one."