It has come at last—the call to arms—the biggest thing that may ever be my lot to record in all my life, or the life of my country. So I have hunted up this old book of Memoirs that I have not written in for months, in order that I may put down the date.

April 6, 1917. On this day the United States declared war against Germany!

Far down the street a band is playing, and in every direction flags are flying in the warm April breeze. All Washington is a-flutter with banners. The girls are so excited that they can't talk of anything else. Some of them have been in tears ever since the announcement came. Many of them have brothers in Yale or Princeton or Harvard who've only been waiting for this to break away and enlist. Not that the girls don't glory in the fact that they've got some one to go, just as I glory in the thought that Father is in the service. But we've been on a fearful nervous strain ever since the last of January, when Germany declared she'd sink at sight all vessels found in certain zones, and those zones are the very waters where our ships are obliged to go.

Lillian Locke's Uncle Charlie went down in one of the merchant ships they sank last month. He was her favorite uncle, and most of us girls knew him. He came to the school twice last year, and whenever he sent Lillian "eats" he sent enough for her to treat the entire class. Then there is Duffield, and Bailey Burrell and Watson Tucker all off on the high seas somewhere. Sometimes at vespers when we sing:

We Seniors have voted to cut out all frills in our Commencement exercises, and give the money to the Red Cross. We're going to wear simple white shirt-waist suits. It'll make it such a plain affair it won't be worth while for our families to come on to see us get our diplomas.

Barby is coming anyhow, and I know she'll be disappointed. She has all the old-time ideas about flowers and fluffy ruffles for the "sweet girl graduates." She had them herself, with so many presents and congratulations that her graduation was almost as grand an occasion as her wedding. Her Aunt Barbara's pearl necklace which she inherited was handed over to her then, and I think she has visions of my wearing it on the same stage, on the occasion of my Commencement. There are only a few strands in the necklace and the pearls are quite small, though exquisitely beautiful, but, of course, I couldn't wear it with just a plain shirt-waist.

Easter has come and gone, and nothing of importance has happened here at school, but a letter from Barby brings news of happenings at home which have a place in this record, so I am copying it.

"What a cold and snowy Spring this has been! All week we have had to pile on the wood as we do in midwinter. I am glad that you are away from this bleak tongue of sand, far enough inland and far enough South to escape these cold winds from the Atlantic, and to have Spring buds and Spring bird-calls in the school garden.

"Yesterday, just before supper, while I sat knitting in the firelight, the front doorbell rang. Not hearing Tippy go out into the hall, I started to answer it. You know how she opens a door by degrees, one cautious inch and then another— well, I was just in time to see a big man in a fur cap and burly overcoat shoulder his way in and throw his arms around her in a hearty embrace. I couldn't see his face in the dusk, nor did I recognize the deep voice that cried out—'Ah, Tippy! But you look good to me!'

"The next instant I was caught up in a great bear hug by those same strong arms. It was Richard, home again after two long years, and so glad to be back that it was a joy to see his delight. He had come home to enlist.

"You can easily picture for yourself the scene at the table a little while later. He teased and flattered Tippy till she was almost beside herself. She kept getting up to open some new jar of pickle or preserves, or to bring on something else from the pantry which she remembered he had an especial liking for. Afterwards he insisted on tying one of her aprons around him and wiping the dishes for her. He kept her quivering with concern as usual for the safety of the cups and saucers, when he tried his old juggling tricks of keeping several in the air at the same time.

"But later, when we were alone, he dropped all his gay foolery and sat down on the hearthrug at my feet, as he used to do when he was a little lad, and, leaning his head against my knee, looked into the fire.

"'You're all I've got now, Barby,' he said, and took my knitting away that my hand might be free to stray over his forehead as it used to do when he came to me for sympathy and comfort. After a moment he began talking about his father. It was the first time I had seen him, you know, since Mr. Moreland was killed.

"Then he told me how circumstances had made it possible for him to come back to the States to enlist, as soon as war was declared. He is no longer bound by his promise to the Canadian whose family he was caring for. The man was sent back home two months ago, dismissed from a hospital in France. He was wounded twice so badly that one leg had to be amputated. But though he came home on crutches he came back with something which he values more than his leg—the Victoria Cross. He won it in an awful battle, one in which nearly his whole regiment was wiped out.

"Richard sprang up from the rug and paced the floor as he talked about it. His face glowed so that I couldn't help asking, 'But how did you feel when you saw him with the cross that might have been yours had you gone in his stead!'

"He stood a moment with one elbow resting on the mantel, looking down into the fire. Then he said slowly, 'Well, it would have been ripping, of course, to have had it one's self—worth dying for in fact; but after all, you know, little Mother, it isn't the "guerdon" any of us are after in this war. It's just that the deed gets done. I believe that is the spirit in which all America is going into it. Not for any gain—not for any glory—she's simply saying to herself and to the world, "For the deed's sake will I do this."'

"As he said that, he looked so like his father in one of his inspired moods, that I realized the two years in which he has been away has made a man of him. It was only that he was so boyishly glad to be at home again that I hadn't noticed before how earnest and mature he had grown to be.

"Within a month after the Canadian's return, he was able to take a place in the factory. His artificial limb made it possible. Richard went at once to an aviation field to complete his training. He intended to go from there to join a flying squadron in France, for his Cousin James is ready now to do anything for him he asks. But just as he was about to start, the United States declared war, and he hurried home to enlist under his own flag. He has been promised a commission and an opportunity to go soon in some special capacity, for he passed all the tests in expert flying. He will probably be kept at Newport News while he is waiting for some bit of red tape to be untied.

"He did not stay late, for there were some business matters he had to discuss with Mr. Milford, and he left town early this morning. Several times while here, he glanced around saying, 'Somehow I keep expecting Georgina to pop in every time the door opens. It doesn't seem like home without her here to keep things stirred up.'

"He asked many questions about you and said that he hopes mightily to see you before he sails. I told him that was highly improbable as Commencement is to be so late this year owing to the enforced vacation in January when over half the school was in quarantine on account of mumps and measles. That was the first he had heard of it, and he said to congratulate you for him on your lucky escape."

I am glad that Barby wrote in detail as she did, for I have not had a line from Richard in three months. Evidently he did not get my last letter, for in that I told him all about that quarantine, and the fun we girls had who escaped the contagion, but who were kept in durance vile on account of the others.

I wish I had been at home when he surprised them. I wish I were a boy and could do what he is doing. It would be simply glorious to go winging one's way into battle as he will do. It's one thing to give your life for your country in one exalted moment of renunciation, and quite another to give it in little dribs of insignificant sacrifices and petty duties, the way we stay-at-home girls have to do. It is maddening to have the soul of an "Ace" who would dare any flight or of a "Sammie" who would endure any trench, and then have nothing but a pair of knitting needles handed out to you.

Another letter from Barby this week. Of course I knew the war would come close home in many ways, but I hadn't expected it would get that little mother-o'-mine first thing. This is what she writes:

"It is quite possible that I may be in Washington by the last of May. Mrs. Waldon has written, begging me to come and stay with her while Catherine goes back to Kentucky for a visit. She writes that she is 'up to her ears' in the Army and Navy League work, and that is where I belong. She says I should be there getting inspiration for all this end of the state, and lending a hand in the grand drive they are planning for. Her letter is such a veritable call to arms that I feel that I'll be shirking my duty if I don't go. Tippy says there is no reason why I shouldn't go. She can get Miss Susan Triplett to come up from Wellfleet to stay with her till you come home.

"Her patriotic old soul is fired with joy at no longer being under the ban of a 'neutral' silence. When it comes to her powers of speech, Tippy on the war-path is a wonder. I wish the Kaiser could hear her when she is once thoroughly warmed up on the subject. She'd be in the first soup-kitchen outfit that leaves for the front if it wasn't for her rheumatism. As it is, she is making the best self-appointed recruiting officer on the whole Cape.

"I have written to your father, asking him if he can find me a place where I can be useful on one of the hospital ships; I can't nurse, but there ought to be many things I can do if it's nothing more than scrubbing the operating rooms and sterilizing instruments. And maybe in that way I could see him occasionally. Of course it isn't as if he were stationed on one particular ship. I believe he could manage it then, but being needed in many places and constantly moving he may not want me to go. In that case I shall join Mrs. Waldon. She says she can put me into a place where every hour's work will count for something worth while."

It made the tears come to my eyes when I read that. Little Barby, out in the world doing things for her country! Since I have grown to be half a head taller than she, and especially since my office training last summer and Father's leaving her in my care, I've been thinking of her as little Barby. She's never done anything in public but read her graduating essay. The tables are turned now. It is she who is going out on a stony road in her little bare feet, and she's never been shod for such going. But she's got the spirit of the old Virginia Cavaliers, even if she didn't inherit a Pilgrim-father backbone as the Huntingdons did. She'll never stop for the stones, and she'll get to any place she starts out to reach. I'm as proud of her as I am of Father. I've simply got to do something myself, as soon as school is out.