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GADSBY

non might go Boom! and hit Bill or Julius. Do you know Frank Morgan, Paul Johnson and John Smith? All right; that big cannon might hit that trio, too. Nobody can say who a cannon will hit, Allan. Now, you go right on through Grammar School, and grow up into a big strong man, and don’t think about war;” and Gadsby, standing and gazing far off to Branton Hills’ charming hill district, thought: “I think that will bust up a wild young ambition!”

But that kid, turning back, sang out:—

“Say!! If this scrap stops, and a big war starts,—Aha, boy! You just watch Allan Banks! Son of Councilman Banks!!” and a small fist was pounding viciously on an also small bosom.

“By golly!” said Gadsby, walking away, “that’s Tomorrow talking!”

***

So now this history will drift along; along through days and months; days and months of that awful gnawing doubt; actually a paradox, for it was a “conscious coma;” mornings on which Branton Hills’ icy blood shrank from looking at our city’s “Post,” for its casualty list was rapidly—too rapidly,—growing. Days and days of our girlhood and womanhood rolling thousands of long, narrow cotton strips; packing loving gifts from many a pan-

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