Young Hilda at the Wars

t that's nothing. They're all a bunch of crazy children, both sides, and pretty soon they'll

war means to yo

et yourself mixed up in it? An American belongs out of it. Go and work in a

Lieutenant Robert de Broqueville and Commandant Gilson, with the wound on his face, and the boys that come into

ou make t

nt for a moment,

honor. They made a fight against odds.

said the man, stretchi

ou don't care to know. You're all alike; you stand aloof or amused. A

nt," interru

m made her fight, she suffered horrible things. Her women and children were mutilated on syst

eve you," ret

and

essing, and in his compact phrases, as hard and well-rounded as a pebble. The world to him was a place full of slackers, of lazy good-nature, of inefficiency. Into that softness he had come with a high explosive and an aim. He moved through life as a hunter among a covey of tame partridges-a brief flutter and a tumble of soft flesh. He had the cunning lines about the mouth, the glint in the eye, of the successful man. He had the easy generosities, too, of the man who, possessing much, can ex

ughter would come forward at the Day of Judgment, if there was any

busy in thought with what had been sa

t you've never once been on the ground. I am living there, working each day, where things a

n business," obj

ues for your own sons and grandsons. And you're too busy to inform yourself as to the rights of it. You prefer to sit on the fe

id the banker, with a grin; "sh

ngrily, "and it was

?" asked he. "We're not in

e you take as much time to informing yourself as you'd give to learning about a railroad stock which you were going to buy. Here's the biggest thing that ever w

When I have informed myself, what then? Go an

ndon street boys. But what can be asked even of a New York banker is that he shall sell to t

ss by the G

make out. You'll burn your fingers if you try to put a tag on these peasants and shop-assistants and clerks, over here. They're not afraid to die. The modern man is all right, but you f

r American," said

her of us was in Lincoln's Cabinet. My people have helped to make our country. We were the ones that welcomed Louis Kossuth, and Garibaldi. We are Americans. It's men like you that

lk heatedly but what are you saying? I have given money to the Relief Work. I'

r twice a day, they are putting themselves between wounded men and shell fire. You talk about results. There

itting silent and a little grim, and moving weaker men to his will, that it was

wounded under shrapnel. You've come to regard your directive ability as something sacred. You think you can sit in moral judgment on these people

as used to sw

o it,"

her inquiries out among her Belgian friends. The d

Hospital," suggested Monsieur Caron, Se

e will go the

the mad modern city where she had struggled for her bread. The tide of slaughter was still to the east: a low rumble, like surf on a far-away beach. Sometimes it came whinnying and licking at the very doorstep, and then ebbed back, but never rolled up on the ancient city. It

he blunt-nosed boats of wide girth that trafficked down those calm reaches were as motionless as the waters that floated them. Out of the upper air, bells from high towers dropped their carillon on a populat

their pleasure, those people of Ghent. No sullen silence and hasty gorging for them. They practised a leisurely dining and an eager talk, a zest in the flying moment. Their streets were blocked to the curb with little round o

days, when everything that is pleasant and care-free is almost over, and every greeting of a comrade is touched with Vale. It is the little things that are to be lost, so to the little things the time remaining is given. It is then

n't it?" said the b

lda; "it isn't m

ke this!" went on Hinchcliffe.

s sort of ancestral thing

When his mind once gripped an idea, it carried it throug

u remember that it was some one else that came pouncing down upon her. It seem

g," he said; "

cot of one of the men. The peasant's face was pallid, and the cheeks sunken from loss of blood. The priest addressed him in Flemish, telling him these two were friendly visitors, and wished to know what had been done to him. Quietly and sadly the man in the bed spoke. Sentence by sentence the priest translated it for Hilda and the banker. On Sunday morning, the peasant, Leopold de Man, of Number 90 Hovenier Straat, Alo

y, he went on wi

make me march. There are seventeen or eighteen persons with me. They place us in front of their lines and menace us with their

d, but they force us to rise again. At a certain moment, when the Ger

, and was taking down the translation as the priest gave it. Something kindly welled up inside Hilda toward him. Something spoke to her heart that it was the crust of him that had fallen away. She had misjudged him. In her swift way she had been unjust. Her countryman was not hard, only unseeing. Things hadn't been broug

cheeks had the angry red spot of fever. He was Frans Meulebroeck, of Number 62 Drie Sleutelstraat, Alost. Sometimes

e Germans said to me, 'You are going to pay for that to us.' A few moments later, they gave me a bayonet cut in my leg. They sprinkled naphtha in my ho

again in front of him. They became fixed and wild, the white of them visible. His voice was shril

aven't seen him." His b

riest. "Bonne chance

man his statement, Leopold firmly, the fevered Frans making his mark with a

to the bedside of a very old woman, perhaps eighty years old. The eyes were closed, the thin white h

high with a bayone

and vivid it gleamed in that room of pain. It was hair of the very color of Hilda's own. The child was propped up in bed, and half bent over, as if she had been broken

body of the child. With each give of the breath, the sound was forced out. The wheezing, as if the fall

Pain had done its utmost, and a partial unconsciousness was spreading o

ess. The shrewd, appraising eyes lost their glint under a film of tears. He went over to the little one, and touched her very lightly on the hair. It was bright and gay, and incongruous on

of the women, "what is it wit

en to the bone with bayonets. She was placed in front o

sked Hilda. "I can hea

, and the breath is loud as it comes. It wi

n air, and climbed into the waiting motor. The b

lay somewhere? And the children still in pain, here and everywhere in Belgium-will it be made up to

id you see her hair? Th

myself in her place. I feel t

those things to me that evening in London. I could not sleep that night for thinking of all you said. And when I lo

BO

e. Each house was a separate torch, for they had been carefully primed with oil. The light of them, and almost the heat, was on our faces. It was a clear, warm evening. The fires of the cottages burned high. A full moon rose blood-red on the horizon, climbed to the dome and went across the sky to the south-west. Two dogs, chained in the y

d in at the smouldering cottages. From the ruins of the little house which the peasant