“I’ll say just one thing more,” Miles went on, and you could have heard a pin drop in that hall. “If any of our boys don’t come back,—Lem Chapman and Frank Keeler and the others,—those that do, will they think a prettified Farragut Square is the best monument for the ones who died for us over there?” The sergeant turned, and John Warren took hold of his arm to lead him back. Mr. Chapman, Lem’s father, was up like a flash. “Hold on!” he shouted. “No, it ain’t, by Jupiter!” Crash! Out came the handclapping like the rattle of rifle fire. More than one shrewd old eye was moist, and few were the hearts that did not beat with a more generous quickness. “What can we do, Sergt. Miles?” asked Mr. Chapman. “You have told us what we shouldn’t do, and I for one thank you for it. We want to do the right thing. Every man of us here does. Tell us what it is.” “Let us dispose of Article 10 first,” said Dr. Shepard. The house approved, and Mr. Chapman gave way. The article was put in the form of a motion, was voted upon, and defeated as if it had never had a friend in the world. “Make a motion, Miles!” shouted a score of voices. “Do you want to know what I should do?” said the soldier. “There are places in France and Belgium that used to be towns. Some haven’t even the cellars left. An American society has been formed to take hold of the work of building up those places after the war. We could write to that society and get the name of a town that once was—a little one; one where perhaps our own boys have fought. Fenville could put the money she meant to spend on herself into helping to make it a town again. It would help, don’t you worry about that. So Fenville could feel, always, long after our time, that that little French town was her camarade. And it would be her bit; Fenville’s bit.” When he could make himself heard, the Rev. Jeremiah Soule made a motion, the gist of which was that a committee be appointed to correspond with the society with the object of learning the name of some small devastated town in France or Belgium that would be a worthy recipient of twenty-five thousand dollars from Fenville’s treasury, the same to be expended toward rebuilding the town at the end of the war. A dozen voices seconded the motion, and on being put to vote it was carried unanimously. Mr. Crabbe, the conscientious objector, was one of the first to rise on the ay vote. The fiery little man had his streak of sentiment, after all. So had Henry Torrey, who said gruffly that he was glad to see the town’s money spent for a really useful purpose for once. “Three cheers for Sergt. Warren, then!” shouted Mr. Chapman. “And make them rousers!” “He and John went out,” said a voice in the rear of the hall. “Cheer him from the steps!” cried another.