_Fourth Schoolgirl_. (_Has wandered away a few yards. She bends and picks a flower from the ditch. She speaks to herself_.) The flag floated here. There were shells bursting and guns thundering and groans and blood--here. American boys were dying where I stand safe. That's what they did. They made me safe. They kept America free. They made the "world safe for freedom," (_She bends and speaks into the ditch_.) Boy, you who lay just there in suffering and gave your good life away that long-ago summer day--thank you. You died for us. America remembers. Because of you there will be no more wars, and girls such as we are may wander across battle-fields, and nations are happy and well governed, and kings and masters are gone. You did that, you boys. You lost fifty years of life, but you gained our love forever. Your deaths were not in rain. Good-by, dear, dead boys. _Teacher_. (_Calls_). Child, come! We must catch the train. FOURTH ACT _The scene is the same trench in the year 2018. It is three o'clock of the afternoon, of the same summer day. A newly married couple have come to see the trench. He is journeying as to a shrine; she has allowed impersonal interests, such as history, to lapse under the influence of love and a trousseau. She is, however, amenable to patriotism, and, her husband applying the match, she takes fire--she also, from the story of the trench_. _He_. This must be the place. _She_. It is nothing but a ditch filled with flowers. _He_. The old trench. (_Takes off his hat_.) _She_. Was it--it was--in the Great War? _He_. My dear! _She_. You're horrified. But I really--don't know. _He_. Don't know? You must. _She_. You've gone and married a person who hasn't a glimmer of history. What will you do about it? _He_. I'll be brave and stick to my bargain. Do you mean that you've forgotten the charge of the Blank_th_ Americans against the Prussian Guard? The charge that practically ended the war? _She_. Ended the war? How could one charge end the war? _He_. There was fighting after. But the last critical battle was here (_looks about_) in these meadows, and for miles along. And it was just here that the Blank_th_ United States Regiment made its historic dash. In that ditch--filled with flowers--a hundred of our lads were mown down in three minutes. About two thousand more followed them to death. _She_. Oh--I do know. It was _that_ charge. I learned about it in school; it thrilled me always. _He_. Certainly. Every American child knows the story. I memorized the list of the one hundred soldiers' names of my own free will when I was ten. I can say them now. "Arnold--Ashe--Bennett--Emmet--Dragmore--" _She_. Don't say the rest, Ted--tell me about it as it happened. (_She slips her hand into his_.) We two, standing here young and happy, looking forward to a, lifetime together, will do honor, that way, to those soldiers who gave up their happy youth and their lives for America.