Rats don't worry Carl as they do some
people--he was always chummy with all little beasts. He says he is
making a study of the habits of the trench rat and means to write a
treatise on it some day that will make him famous.
"Ken wrote a short letter. His letters are all rather short now--and he
doesn't often slip in those dear little sudden sentences I love so much.
Sometimes I think he has forgotten all about the night he was here to
say goodbye--and then there will be just a line or a word that makes me
think he remembers and always will remember. For instance to-day's
letter hadn't a thing in it that mightn't have been written to any girl,
except that he signed himself 'Your Kenneth,' instead of 'Yours,
Kenneth,' as he usually does. Now, did he leave that 's' off
intentionally or was it only carelessness? I shall lie awake half the
night wondering. He is a captain now. I am glad and proud--and yet
Captain Ford sounds so horribly far away and high up. Ken and Captain
Ford seem like two different persons. I may be practically engaged to
Ken--mother's opinion on that point is my stay and bulwark--but I
can't be to Captain Ford!
"And Jem is a lieutenant now--won his promotion on the field. He sent
me a snap-shot, taken in his new uniform. He looked thin and old--old--
my boy-brother Jem. I can't forget mother's face when I showed it to
her. 'That--my little Jem--the baby of the old House of Dreams?' was
all she said.
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