not for long. Days got to flashing past, with that awful sight of girls, out to lunch, saying:—
“Four from our shop; and that big cotton mill has forty-six who will go,”
With Virginia saying:—
“About all that our boys talk about is uniforms, pay, transportation, army corps, divisions, naval squadrons, and so on.”
An occasional Branton Hills politician thought that it “might blow out in a month or two;” but your Historian knows that it didn’t; all of that “blowing” consisting of blasts from that military clarion, calling for mobilization.
***
Days! Days! Days! Finally, on May Fourth, that day of tiny Nancy’s big church ritual, you know; that day, upon which any woman would look back with romantic joy, Nancy, with Kathlyn, Lady Gadsby and His Honor, stood at Branton Hills’ big railway station, at which our Municipal Band was drawn up; in back of which stood, in solid ranks, this city’s grand young manhood, Bill, Julius, Frank, John, Paul and Norman standing just as straight and rigid as any. As that long, long troop train got its signal to start,—but you know all about such sights, going on daily, from our Pacific coast to Atlantic docks.
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