"It’s this way," he tried to explain: "Living is like climbing a mountainside. You drag yourself up to a ledge where you can stand and take breath, and feel that you’ve reached somewhere. Then, just as you think that you can camp there and be comfortable for the rest of your life, you find yourself summoned to move to the next ledge higher up. At that some of us get discouraged; some fall off and go down; but most of us brace ourselves for another great big test. Do you see?" Gladys answered, doubtfully, "I see—a little." "Well then, the thing we need for the test is pluck, isn’t it?" Gussie spoke dreamily. "We need pluck for everything." "So we do; and I often think that we don’t make enough of it. Pluck is different from courage, because it’s—how shall I say?—it’s a little more cheery and intimate. Courage is like a Sunday suit that you wear for big occasions; but pluck is your everyday clothes, which you need all the time and feel easy in. Courage is noble and heroic—something we’d be shy about claiming. Pluck is the courage of the common man, which anyone can feel he has a right to." "I can’t," Gussie confessed. "I’m the awfulest coward." With this Gladys agreed. "Yes, Gus is a regular scarecat. I’m not afraid of hardly anything." "We’re all cowards in our way; but we could all be plucky when we mightn’t like to call ourselves brave. Do you get what I mean?" Gladys made a sound of assent which seemed to answer for all three. "Well, what I’m trying to say is this: That the time has come when we’re all being summoned—you three—and me—and Teddy—and all of us—to pull up to another ledge. It’s going to be tough, but we can make up our minds that we can go through with it. I don’t mean just knowing that we _must_ go through with it, but knowing that we _can_." There was silence for the two or three minutes during which the girls thought this over. "You said," Gladys reasoned, "that it was something we could do for you. I don’t see—" "You’d do it for me, because it’s easier to pull with strong people rather than with weak ones. You see, this is something which no one of us can meet alone; we must all meet it together, and the stronger each of us is the stronger we all are. Being strong is a matter of knowing that you’re strong, just as being weak is the same. If I was sure that none of you was going to break down, I could be stronger myself, and we could all buck up Teddy." After another brief silence, Gladys sighed. "All the same, it would be terrible—if they did anything to him." "Not more terrible than what millions of sisters faced in the last few years, with their brothers blown to bits. They were able to bear it by getting the idea that they could." Jennie spoke for the first time. "Ah, but that was glory, and this is disgrace." "Then it calls for more pluck—that’s all. The test comes to one in one way and to another in another. Real glory is in meeting it." It was still Jennie who urged the difficulties.