Grace S. Richmond

“ Perhaps you don't think that's a womanly thing to do—but it's better, from my point of view—it's sporting. For Mother's got something of a temper—you'd know anybody with so much grit must have a temper—and lots of times when she wanted to be angry, suddenly she'd break out in a regular rag-time whistle, and then laugh, and everything would be all right again. ”

“ Kissed me, with her hand on my shoulder—glove off—and then said: "Want to spin round the Circle, Jack, before we go home? By that time they'll all be there."
"Sure," I said, grinning at the car. We're not rich, and I don't sport a car to go to lectures with, like Hoofy and a lot of other fellows, so ours always looks darned good to me when I get home. Mother understands how I'm crazy to drive the minute I can get my hands on the wheel, so without an invitation I put her into the seat beside me and took the driver's place myself. ”

“ He was banking on doing his bit in the Home Defence League, and the Red Cross, and everywhere else he could get his hand in, and I could tell well enough that he was aching to be in active service.
But after all, it's the mothers, I think, who do the biggest giving when their sons go to war. I suspect it's what they put into their sons that stands for the real stuff in the crisis. I don't think there are many weak mothers, like Hoofy Gilbert's, even among the ones who are invalids. But I wish more of them understood what it is to a fellow to have his mother hold her head up! ”

“ I told him he mustn't do that—that his mother would never forgive him, and that he'd have to put on a stiff upper lip and go through with it. And Hoofy owned that that was the thing he was really afraid of—that his upper lip wouldn't keep stiff but would wobble, in spite of him. And of course a breakdown on his own part would be the worst possible thing that could happen to him. No potential soldier wants to feel his upper lip unreliable, no matter what happens. It's likely to make him flinch in a critical moment, when flinching won't do. ”

“ You needn't fear we shall make it hard for you—not we. We may offer you a good deal of jelly, in our enthusiasm for you, but you could always stand a good deal of jelly, you know, so there's no danger of our making a jelly-fish of you—which wouldn't do, in the circumstances. ”

“ Yes, that's a picture of Mother; neat little holder for it, isn't it? Yes, I know; she does look interesting, doesn't she? She's an awfully good shot, and drives her own car, and rides like a Cossack, and does a lot of other things—not to mention making home—well—what it is. I suppose I'm rather braggy about her, but I tell you I feel that way just now, and I'm going to tell you why.... She's pretty, too, don't you think so? I thought you would.
The thing that started me off was Hoofy Gilbert coming across the dorm hall with a letter in his hand. ”

“ She always seems more like a sort of good chum dressed like that than when she puts on trailers and silky things—though, my word! if you don't think she's a peach in evening dress you never saw her. Her neck and shoulders—but that's neither here nor there just now. ”

“ But she has an awfully clever little trick of making a fellow feel good, and I like it—who wouldn't? A lot of mothers never lose an opportunity to take a son down a bit—though I don't suppose one would whose son had come to say goodbye. ”