Time's going to fly for my little mother."
"I'll kill myself first!"
"You wouldn't have me a quitter, little mother. You wouldn't have the other
fellows in my crowd at college go out and do what I haven't got the guts to
do. You want me to hold up my head with the best of 'em."
"I don't want nothing but my boy! I--"
"Us college men got to be the first to show that the fighting backbone of
the country is where it belongs. If us fellows with education don't set the
example, what can we expect from the other fellows? Don't ask me to be a
quitter, mother. I couldn't! I wouldn't! My country needs us, mother--you
and me--"
"Edwin! Edwin!"
"Attention, little mother--stand!"
She lay back her head, laughing, crying, sobbing, choking.
"O God--take him and bring him back--to me!"
On a day when sky and water were so identically blue that they met in
perfect horizon, the S. S. _Rowena_, sleek-flanked, mounted fore and aft
with a pair of black guns that lifted snouts slightly to the impeccable
blue, slipped quietly, and without even a newspaper sailing-announcement
into a frivolous midstream that kicked up little lace edged wavelets,
undulating flounces of them.
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