"Hold on, Kurt," called Olsen, and left the group to lay a hand on the horse and to speak low. "What you said struck me deep. It applies pretty hard to us of the Bend. We've always been farmers, with no thought of country. An' that's because we left our native country to come here. I'm not German an' I've never been for Germany. But many of my neighbors an' friends are Germans. This war never has come close till now. I know Germans in this country. They have left their fatherland an' they are lost to that fatherland!... It may take some time to stir them up, to make them see, but the day will come.... Take my word for it, Dorn, the German-Americans of the Northwest, when it comes to a pinch, will find themselves an' be true to the country they have adopted." CHAPTER XVI The sun was up, broad and bright, burning over the darkened wheat-fields, when Kurt and Jerry reached home. Kurt had never seen the farm look like that--ugly and black and bare. But the fallow ground, hundreds of acres of it, billowing away to the south, had not suffered any change of color or beauty. To Kurt it seemed to smile at him, to bid him wait for another spring. And that thought was poignant, for he remembered he must leave at once for "Many Waters." He found, when he came to wash the blood and dirt from his person, that his bruises were many. There was a lump on his head, and his hands were skinned. After changing his clothes and packing a few things in a valise, along with his papers, he went down to breakfast. Though preoccupied in mind, he gathered that both the old housekeeper and Jerry were surprised and dismayed to see him ready to leave. He had made no mention of his intentions. And it struck him that this, somehow, was going to be hard. Indeed, when the moment came he found that speech was difficult and his voice not natural. "Martha--Jerry--I'm going away for good," he said, huskily. "I mean to make over the farm to Mr. Anderson. I'll leave you in charge here--and recommend that you be kept on. Here's your money up to date.... I'm going away to the war--and the chances are I'll never come back." The old housekeeper, who had been like a mother to him for many years, began to cry; and Jerry struggled with a regret that he could not speak. Abruptly Kurt left them and hurried out of the house. How strange that difficult feelings had arisen--emotions he had never considered at all! But the truth was that he was leaving his home forever. All was explained in that. First he went to the graves of his father and mother, out on the south slope, where there were always wind and sun. The fire had not desecrated the simple burying-ground. There was no grass. But a few trees and bushes kept it from appearing bare.