'Darn it, I ain't,'
he called right out--only, Miss Oliver, dear, he did not use so mild a
word as 'darn'--'darn it, I ain't, and I don't mean to die until the
Kaiser is well licked.' Now, that, Miss Oliver, dear," concluded Susan,
"is the kind of spirit I admire."
"I admire it but I can't emulate it," sighed Gertrude. "Before this, I
have always been able to escape from the hard things of life for a
little while by going into dreamland, and coming back like a giant
refreshed. But I can't escape from this."
"Nor I," said Mrs. Blythe. "I hate going to bed now. All my life I've
liked going to bed, to have a gay, mad, splendid half-hour of imagining
things before sleeping. Now I imagine them still. But such different
things."
"I am rather glad when the time comes to go to bed," said Miss Oliver.
"I like the darkness because I can be myself in it--I needn't smile or
talk bravely. But sometimes my imagination gets out of hand, too, and I
see what you do--terrible things--terrible years to come."
"I am very thankful that I never had any imagination to speak of," said
Susan. "I have been spared that. I see by this paper that the Crown
Prince is killed again. Do you suppose there is any hope of his staying
dead this time? And I also see that Woodrow Wilson is going to write
another note. I wonder," concluded Susan, with the bitter irony she had
of late begun to use when referring to the poor President, "if that
man's schoolmaster is alive.
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