between the Cyclorama and the vestibule, and then the outer door itself.

Old Evans had many friends. Among his intimates were the blacksmith, John Byers, who was the largest man in Gettysburg; Alec Dimmet, a carpenter, who was six feet two and of powerful frame; and John Potter, the Burgess, who was only a little smaller than John Byers.

Evans lived with the Burgess, a silent man who liked to hear Evans talk. Seen together they suggested a giant and his familiar. Agreement between them was complete, both about their manner of living and about the affairs of the world. Especially did they now agree about what Evans called "the contemporary war," and their comments took the form of a lengthy recitative in Evans's tenor with comments in Potter's deep bass. The recitative recounted the events of each day as reported in the newspapers, the bass added such expressions as "hellish butch""execrable," and occasionally "damnable." When Alec Dimmet and John Byers were present, there were three harmonious basses.

ery,

It was the summer of 1916 when the three stout strangers came to Gettysburg. Obese and rich, they were motoring from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, and stopped against their will. The ride was dull. For them nature had few charms; they wished only to get on to their business appointment the next evening. They saw neither blossoming rhododendron nor swift little streams nor the unbounded prospects spread before them at each descent of the mountain ridges. Here and there enormous signs, already disfiguring the Lincoln Highway, caught their eye, and they pointed them out to one another as the one notable feature of the landscape.

The three talked steadily, moved by a strange obsession. A red flower had blossomed in the world from an ancient root long thought dead and done with, and this blossom they meditated upon and loved. They were soft and pampered creatures who could not have stood for an instant against a good-sized and strong-armed boy, yet they glorified physical power. They were Americans, speaking only English, knowing only-as far as they knew any literature-English literature, living under English laws, partaking of the blessings of a free spirit which was also English, and still by some strange perversity allying themselves with the Germany from which their fathers had fled. Of its efficiency in peace and war they talked at length and loudly, of the satisfaction of brutal instincts which a world has striven to inhibit they spoke in lower tones but with a deeper pleasure.

In the early afternoon they reached Gettysburg, and there were told by their chauffeur that their car could not go on until the next day. Meanwhile he would have to go by train to Harrisburg for a broken part.

The three were angry. The history of America did not interest them. Gettysburg looked to them like a poor town, and to them, by some obscure analogy, the battle was a poor battle. To the soliciting of the guides at the hotel they were deaf. "This is a one-horse show. We'll wait and see France and England when Germany's licked them."

After an early supper the three walked ponderously up and down the hills of a long street and came at last to the Cyclorama. Because they were tired they went in.

Old Evans hopped to meet them, his eyes twinkling. He had had that day only a few visitors and his soul longed for expression. All the comparisons invented could scarcely describe the need of old Evans for frequent communion with his kind. Tomorrow he expected to be away, and there was therefore all the more reason why he should talk to-day.

"Well, friends"-thus had he spoken aloud to himself several times during the long afternoon, hearing, as he spoke, the usual comments-" Wasn't it awful?" "How did they live through it?" "I tell you those were brave men !" He expected, as he went forward to meet this group of visitors, a repetition of his little triumphs. He moistened his lips, he heard himself saying, "Now, friends, a general look first ;" he heard his climax, There I fought, friends!"

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Kindly old Evans was so poor a judge of human character of a certain sort that he shook hands with his three visitors. Sit down, friends, here in the vestibule. This is a warm evening. I'll tell you here what you're going to see, then we'll go inside. Now, friends, to do that I must go back a little before

the battle. You see, friends, it was this way. For two years, friends, war had been proceeding, and our folks hadn't been successful. You know all about that. Lee, he conceived a great plan. If he could get north of Mason and Dixon's line and attack the capital of the Keystone State, which was Harrisburg, he wouldn't have much trouble-so he thought-with Philadelphia, and after that Baltimore and Washington would be easy marks. So, having whipped our folks bad at Chancellorsville, he made his plans for to go north, and he did go north, friends, clear to sight of Harrisburg. But then, friends, he got important word that set him thinking. Our folks was after him. But he thought that General Stuart could easily tend to them with his cavalry, and he goes on. He-"

Old Evans found himself interrupted. "Say, friend," said a harsh voice, "we haven't got all time. We've got to be in Philadelphia to-morrow evening.' Evans made pleasant answer, as though to a witticism. He had not yet surmised that there might be human beings who were not interested in what he had to say.

"I haven't got all time either," said he, cheerfully. "I'm going to East Berlin this evening to stay till to-morrow evening. I have a little farm there. I-"

"East Berlin? Where's that?"

"It's a town near here. My friend the Burgess is going to take charge of this place for me to-morrow."

"I'm glad you're good Germans in this neighborhood." Old Evans did not hear. He took a long breath, as for a plunge into the deep water.

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So Lee went on, friends. But it wasn't long till he learned the sickenin' news-that is, sickenin' to him--that Stuart had not been successful in bafflin' Hooker, and that Hooker had outgeneraled Stuart. What did this make Lee determine to do, friends? To give up his nefarious plan of attacking the capital of the Keystone State--from which it had a narrow escape, I can tell you-and get his folks first together, and then out of the narrow valley where they was, which would have been the same as a prison trap. So, friends-"

The largest of the three men rose and walked toward the iron grating which divided the vestibule from the Cyclorama. Inside and well within the cylindrical room there was still another grating.

You'd better show us what you got. We can look while you

talk."

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So, now, friends, as I have told you, the first day was a victory for the Confederates; the second day was, one might say, so to speak, a drawn battle, and it was left to the third day to decide that God was still in his heaven, friends, if I might speak in such strong terms. It was on the third day that the great question was decided, friends. Here at this point "-the long wand rested upon the thickest of the carnage"here government of the people, by the people, and for the people did not perish from the earth-'

"Seems to me I've heard that before," said one of the strangers.

"Sounds familiar to me, too."

Evans went on in a louder tone.

Now, gentlemen, move back here to a further distance." The three took ponderous steps like elephants in haste. One of them raised his arm to imitate Evans's gesture. "Now friends, you see there by that cannon"You call that a cannon! Why, that's a toy for a child to play with."

"A toy!" repeated Evans, still pleasantly. "You wouldn't think it was a toy if you got a charge from it in your leg. Why, the cannons shot away hundreds of tons of metal in these three days!"

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They shoot away that much in an hour on the other side." Evans began at last to be disturbed.

"There was two hundred thousand men in this battle," he declared.

"Two hundred thousand!" repeated one of the strangers. "That wasn't much more than an alley fight.'

Evans lowered his wand. His cheeks grew pale. "Why, friends, I know about this battle. I fought "-in his excitement he proceeded with inartistic haste to his climax. "I fought "—with trembling hand the wand was directed again to the center of the hottest fighting-" there! With Hays, friends, I got these wounds there.'

But to this audience Evans's wounds signified nothing. "If you'd been on the other side, there wouldn't 'a' been anything left of you.'

"The other side!" repeated Evans. "You mean the Confed

erate side?"

The three shouted.

"The other side of the water! I mean, if the Germans were after you."

Evans laid down his wand and folded his shaking arms. "Friends," said he, "this was a great battle. History says it, and I know it. Why, look at it!" he pointed tremulously with his finger. "See the throngs of men! See the horses! See there that mass of troops advancing! See them comin' behind by hundreds! See the cannon! See-'

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On the other side they came by thousands," came the mocking answer. "This battle was nothing. This war was nothing." Old Evans was stupefied. He could only repeat, "Nothing!" "You have said it," said one visitor.

"A little quarrel over some niggers," said another. Evans saw now the jeering faces and realized that these strange creatures had come to mock. He realized also the implications of their words.

"This was a great war," he shouted. "It was in a just cause. That over there is "-he remembered gratefully a few serviceable words of the Burgess's-" is hellish butchery!" The visitors laughed at his ardor.

"That is real war," said one. "That is worth something. No 'Alphonse-Gaston 'business about that! They know what they want and they get it. They go to a town. Here,' they say, we want so and so, and you deliver the goods. If you don't, you're dead.'

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Old Evans moved a little away, not because of any physical fear, for he knew no such thing, but because of spiritual horror. "They shoot civilians!" he cried. "Why, in the battle of Gettysburg only one civilian was killed, and she was mourned by both sides. She was Jennie Wade, she-"

"Shoot civilians-of course. Let the civilians get out." "They batter down churches!" cried Evans.

When one of the men laughed, Evans clung to the grating with his whole weight. Such words and such opinions defiled what was to him a holy place.

"You must get out," he commanded. "You cannot stay here." "Bah, bah, bah!" said a voice. "We're glad to go."

The three men moved through the grated door and Evans clicked it shut. But they were not through with poor old Evans. Between the two grated doors they mocked him again.

"Did you think you could fight the Germans?" asked one. Perhaps you thought you could scare 'em!"

Evans's dreadful scar burned.

"Get out!" said he.

"Get out!" mocked one of the fat men.

The voice maddened old Evans. His mind worked quickly. They need not think he was powerless; he would show them what he could do. He slipped through the second iron grating and shut with lightning swiftness the second grated door.

"Then stay!" he shouted. "I'm going for the Burgess." The three men made a rush for the grated door. But the spring lock held. They looked upward. The grating could not by any possibility be scaled by a fat man. They looked back over their shoulders at the enormous picture with its dead and dying. It seemed to them that the smoke clouds moved. They began to curse sickeningly.

66

Bring your Burgess, and you'll get what's coming to you! You fool! Open this door! We couldn't be held for a minute. Not a second. Damn you! Open the door!"

Old Evans stood facing them. One of them might have a revolver, but Evans was past caring for revolvers. His soul was sick and he was filled at the same time with rage. It was true, alas! that they could not be held. What they said boldly in defense of Germany was only what others hinted. Nothing could be done to them. The Burgess would have to let them go unpunished, even though he would long to imprison them. Tears came into Evans's eyes.

I

Then old Evans had a second thought. There are hours when a man must make his own laws. Relentlessly he walked through the vestibule and closed the outer door. When that was shut, not a sound could be heard, neither a cry nor a curse. "There'll be a full moon," said Evans to himself, as he crossed the street. "After a while it'll shine on 'Death on a pale horse.' They can get water if they're thirsty and if they have sense enough to open the closet door. I guess it's a long time since they drank water."

Across the street there was the sound of pounding, and the carpenter Alec Dimmet looked down from the roof of his new porch. He stood like Thor, hammer in hand, grinning at the friend whom he loved.

"Alec," said Evans, "to-morrow morning, at nine o'clock, when you see the Burgess coming, you go across to the Cyclorama with him and he'll give you the ten dollars we owe you.' "All right," said Alec.

66

They can still get to Philadelphia by to-morrow evening," said Evans, as he went down the street.

At the blacksmith's he stopped.

"John," said he, "you go out to the Cyclorama in the morning and fix that hinge. Can you be there at nine sharp ?" I can," said the giant blacksmith.

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Before the little house where old Evans and the Burgess lived together there waited a horse and buggy ready for old Evans's annual journey to East Berlin. The Burgess stood beside it, ready to seize the sober steed if he should by any remote chance decide to lift a foot before the time. "All ready?" asked the Burgess.

Old Evans looked up at his friend.

"Burgess, you won't fail to be at the Cyclorama in the morning?"

"I'll be there."

"Here is the key. Byers is coming at nine o'clock to fix a hinge. I hinge. I guess he'll walk up with you. And Dimmet's coming for his money-ten dollars-you'll find it in the safe." "I'll tend to it," said the Burgess.

Evans slapped the lines on the back of the old horse. He regretted the necessity for even a short hiatus in the communion between him and the Burgess. He was burning, also, with an intense curiosity. That his friends would meet successfully the situation provided for them he did not doubt.

66

"I had three awful men with me this afternoon," said he. They said this was a little quarrel over a few niggers. They said everything the Germans did was right."

"I wish I had my hands on them!" said the giant Burgess. Slowly at last the horse got under way. Old Evans looked back, his eyes gleaming.

"Burgess," said he, "about ten o'clock to-morrow morning I'll 'phone up."

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T ought to give me a queer feeling. I haven't seen a woman for nearly a week, except that all-too-familiar one of whom I catch glimpses in the mirror over my wash-basin.

First place, no woman is allowed to be the only woman on a troop-ship.

Second place, I am the only woman on this troop-ship, and I have managed to get through the danger zone and approach the Gulf Stream without seeing the least other sign of femininity.

All the food has been bought, prepared, and served by men. We have had turkey and cranberry sauce, hot cakes and syrup, home-made white bread, and chocolate cake and ice-cream-and I've not missed a meal.

The decks have been swabbed down by men, and, as a housewife, I pronounce them clean.

with a piece of oilskin to keep the paint off your uniform? If you think a minute, you'll realize that you're wasting Government property. What's your name? Go below and get the oilskin at once." And from one of the sailors: "Hey, Norris, better get those buckets emptied. Exec.'s coming around at eleven."

To tell the truth, I have almost come to forget that I am not a man myself.

A few weeks ago I was at a port in France that belongs to the Navy of the United States, with the co-operation of the French navy. One night I went to a prize-fight-my firstamong bluejackets in the navy theater. "Lady and gentlemen," was the way the announcements were made. A Navy orchestra played very well, I thought. I complimented the officer in command.

"It's pretty good now," he said. "But the men have been practicing hard. The Admiral won't let them ashore until he's