This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

CHAPTER V

THE DAY OF PEACE

And now what of the Christmas Eve that is to follow the war? None of us know when it will come, or what it will be, and perhaps it is futile and even foolish to predict. Yet a dream may be something better than an idle and useless effort, for the longest and blackest night may be shortened and made bearable by a vision of the morning. After two years of the night of war it is not for us, who have known its unimaginable horrors, to prate about peace until we see that it is near and know it will be right. But some of us who through the dark hours have been watchers for the dawn think we see the signs of it. For my part I take my

115