come in last night before leaving for Camp Devens; everybody had crowded
about and praised them and envied them. They had been joked about the
sweaters, and socks made by mothers and sweethearts, and about the
trouble Uncle Sam would have with their mass of mail. The men in the
office had joined to give each a goodbye present. Pride in them, the
honor of them to all the force was shown at every turn; and beyond it
all there was the look of grave contentment in their eyes which is the
mark of the men who have counted the cost and given up everything for
their country. Most of all soldiers, perhaps, in this great war, the
American fights for an ideal. Also he knows it; down to the most
ignorant drafted man, that inspiration has lifted the army and given it
a star in the East to follow. The American fights for an ideal; the sign
of it is in the faces of the men in uniform whom one meets everywhere in
the street.

David Lance, splendidly powerful and fit except for the small limp which
was his undoing, suffered as he joined, whole-hearted, in the glory of
those who were going. Back in his room alone, smoking, staring into his
dying fire, he was dreaming how it would feel if he were the one who was
to march off in uniform to take his man's share of the hardship and
comradeship and adventure and suffering, and of the salvation of the
world. With that, he took his pipe from his mouth and grinned broadly
into the fire as another phase of the question appeared. How would it
feel if he was somebody's special soldier, like both of those boys, sent
off by a mother or a sweetheart, by both possibly, overstocked with
things knitted for him, with all the necessities and luxuries of a
soldier's outfit that could be thought of. He remembered how Jarvis,
the artillery captain, had showed them, proud and modest, his field
glass.