"Sammy--you mean it's enlistment!" Her voice rose in velocity; he could feel her pulse run beneath his fingers. "It's the best way, ma. The draft is sure to get me. Let me beat it and keep myself home--near you. We might as well face the music, ma. They'll get me one way or another. Let me enlist now, ma. Like a man. Right away. For my country!" Do you know the eyes of Bellini's "Agony in a Garden"? Can you hear for yourself the note that must have been Cassandra's when she shouted out her forebodings? There were these now in the glance and voice of Mrs. Lipkind as she drew back from him, her face actually seeming to shrivel. "No, Sammy! No! No! No!" "Ma--please--" "You wouldn't! You couldn't! No, Sammy--my son!" "Ma, for God's sake don't go on so!" "Then tell me you wouldn't! Against your own flesh and blood! Tell me you wouldn't!" "No, no, ma! For God's sake, don't take a fit--a stroke--no, no; I wouldn't--I wouldn't!" "Your own blood, Sammy! Your own baby cousins what I tucked you in bed with--mine own sister's children! Her babies what slept with you. Mine own sister who raised me and worked down her hands to the bone to make it so with my young husband and baby we could come to America--no--no!" "Mamma, for God's sakes--" "Three years like a snake here inside of it's eating me--all night--all day--I'm a good American, Sammy; I got so much I should be thankful for to America. Twenty-five years it's my home, the home where I had prosperity and good treatment, the home where I had happiness with your papa and where he lies buried, but I can't give you to fight against my own, Sammy--to be murdered by your own--my sister what never in her life harmed a bird--my child and her children--cousins--against each other. My beautiful country what I remember with cows and green fields and clover--always the smell of clover. It ain't human to murder against your own flesh and blood for God knows what reason!" "Mamma, there is a reason it--" "I tell you I'm a good American, Sammy. For America I give my last cent, but not to stick knives in my own--it ain't human--Why didn't I die before we got war? What good am I here? In my boy's way for his country--his marriage--his happiness--why don't I die?" "Ma, I tell you you mustn't! You're making yourself sick. Let me fan you. Here, ma, I didn't mean it. See--I'm holding you tight. I won't never let go. You're my little sweetheart mamma. You mustn't tremble like that. I'm holding you tight--tight--little mamma." "My boy! My little boy! My son! My all! All in their bed together. Three. Her two. Mine. The smell of clover--my boy--Sammy--Sam--" She fainted back into his arms suddenly, very white and very quiet and very shriveled. He watched beside her bed the next five hours of the night, his face so close above hers that, when she opened her eyes, his were merged into one for her, and the clasp of his hand never left hers. "You all right, ma? Sure? Sure you don't need the doctor?"