CHAPTER VIII
At the Gates of Government
The man in khaki stood at the door. And he held a woman close to his heart in mansion or cottage—in a rose bowered cottage on the English downs, or red roofed behind the yellow walls of France and Italy, or blue trimmed beside a linden tree in Germany, or ikon-blessed in Russia. All that he had in the world, his estates, his fields or his vineyards, his flocks or his factory, his shop or his job, his home and his children, he was leaving behind. "I leave them to you, dear," he said.
The bugles blew. And he kissed her again. Then he went marching down the street in those fateful days of August, 1914, when all the world began going to war.
So in land after land she took up the trust and the burden that the man who marched away had left her, to "carry on" civilisation. It was the woman movement that was to be under the flags of all nations. Ours too now flies behind the battle smoke. A little while since and our men commenced to stand in khaki on our front porches, then went down the front walk to join the long brown lines passing along Main Street on their way to
280
