"I sometimes feel," added the Champion of the Cause, "that it has indeed been hundreds of years since my work began; and then again it seems so brief a time that, by listening for a moment, I fancy I can hear the echo of my childish voice preaching to the trees in the Michigan woods. But, long or short, the one sure thing is that, taking it all in all, the fight has been worth while. Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great Cause more than life itself, and to have the privilege throughout life of working for that Cause." THE MAKING OF A PATRIOT: MARY ANTIN Where is the true man's fatherland? Is it where he by chance is born? Doth not the yearning spirit scorn In such scant borders to be spanned? O yes! his fatherland must be As the blue heaven wide and free! JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. THE MAKING OF A PATRIOT You know the story of "The Man without a Country"--the man who lost his country through his own fault. Can you imagine what it would mean to be a child without a country--to have no flag, no heroes, no true native land to which you belong as you belong to your family, and which in turn belongs to you? How would it seem to grow up without the feeling that you have a big country, a true fatherland to protect your home and your friends; to build schools for you; to give you parks and playgrounds, and clean, beautiful streets; to fight disease and many dangers on land and water for you?--This is the story of a little girl who was born in a land where she had no chance for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Far from being a true fatherland, her country was like the cruel stepmother of the old tales. It was strange that one could be born in a country and yet have no right to live there! Little Maryashe (or Mashke, as she was called, because she was too tiny a girl for a big-sounding name) soon learned that the Russia where she was born was not her own country. It seemed that the Russians did not love her people, or want them to live in their big land. And yet there they were! Truly it was a strange world. "Why is Father afraid of the police?" asked little Mashke. "He has done nothing wrong." "My child, the trouble is that we can do nothing right!" cried her mother, wringing her hands. "Everything is wrong with us. We have no rights, nothing that we dare to call our own." It seemed that Mashke's people had to live in a special part of the country called the "Pale of Settlement." It was against the law to go outside the Pale no matter how hard it was to make a living where many people of the same manner of life were herded together, no matter how much you longed to try your fortune in a new place. It was not a free land, this Polotzk where she had been born. It was a prison with iron laws that shut people away from any chance for happy living.