When he was not busy in the garden, he spent long hours beside the river in a beautifully fashioned seat which he had made for himself, beneath a large poplar tree. "It is the wind in the tree-tops that I like," he said. "It whispers to me. I can't tell what it says, but it says something. I like trees--they are like people some way--only more patient and friendly." The big elms and spruce of the river valley rustled and whispered together, and the poplars shook their coin-like leaves as he lay beneath their shade. The trees were trying to be kind to him, as the gray olive trees in Gethsemane were kind to One Other when his own had forgotten Him! * * * * * When the news of the war fell upon the Pembina Valley, it did not greatly disturb the peacefulness of that secluded spot. The well-to-do farmers who had held their grain over openly rejoiced at the prospect of better prices, and the younger men, when asked to enlist, replied by saying that the people who made the war had better do the fighting because they had no ambition to go out and stop German bullets. The general feeling was that it would soon be over. At the first recruiting meeting Stanley volunteered his services by walking down the aisle of the church at the first invitation. The recruiting officer motioned to him to be seated, and that he would see him after the meeting. Stanley waited patiently until every person was gone, and then timidly said, "And now, sir, will you please tell me what I am to do?" The recruiting officer, a dapper little fellow, very pompous and important, turned him down mercilessly. Stanley was dismayed. He wandered idly out of the church and was about to start off on his four-mile walk to the Stopping House when a sudden impulse seized him and he followed the recruiting agent to the house where he was staying. He overtook him just as he was going into the house, and, seizing him by the arm, cried, "Don't you see, sir, that you must take me? I am strong and able--I tell you I am no coward--what have you against me, I want to know?" The recruiting officer hesitated. Confound it all! It is a hard thing to tell a man that he is not exactly right in the head. But he did not need to say it, for Stanley beat him to it. "I know what's wrong," he said; "you think I'm not very bright--I am not, either. But don't you see, war is an elemental sort of thing. I can do what I'm told--and I can fight. What does it matter if my head is not very clear on some things which are easy to you? And don't you see how much I want to go? Life has not been so sweet that I should want to hold on to it. The young men here do not want to go, for they are having such a good time. But there is nothing ahead of me that holds me back. Can't you see that, sir? Won't you pass me on, anyway, and let me have my chance? Give me a trial; it's time enough to turn me down when I fail at something. Won't you take me, sir?"