Kathlyn got into our big hospital, this studious young lady's famous biological and microscopic ability holding out an opportunity for most practical work; for Branton Hills' shot-torn boys would soon start drifting in. And thus it was; with Lucy, Sarah and Virginia inspiring Branton Hills' womanhood to knit, knit, knit! You saw knitting on many a porch; knitting in railway trains; knitting during band music in City Park; knitting in shady arbors out at our big zoo; at many a woman's club,--and,--_actually_, knitting _in church!!_ Finally a big factory, down by our railway station, put out a call for "anybody, man or woman, who wants to work on munitions;" and many a dainty Branton Hills girl sat at big, unfamiliar stamping, punching, grinding, or polishing outfits; tiring frail young backs and straining soft young hands; knowing that this factory's output might,--and probably would,--rob a woman across that big Atlantic of a husband or son,--but, still, it is war! Gadsby, smoking on his ivy-clad porch, as his Lady was industriously knitting, said, in a sort of soliloquy:-- "War! That awful condition which a famous military man in command of a division, long ago, said was synonymous with Satan and all his cohorts! War! That awful condition of human minds coming down from way, _way_ back of all history; that vast void during which sympathy was not known; during which animals fought with tooth, claw or horn; that vast void during which wounds had no soothing balm, until thirst, agony or a final swoon laid low a gigantic mammoth, or a tiny, gasping fawn! But now, again, in this grand day of Man's magically growing brain, this day of kindly crooning to infants in cribs; kindly talks to boys and girls in school; and blood-tingling orations from thousands of pulpits upon that Holy Command: 'Thou Shalt Not Kill,' now, _again_, Man is out to kill his own kind." And Lady Gadsby could only sigh. XXVI