Susie wasn’t at home, nor any of the Lathams. They were all in church at the Baptist meetinghouse where I gave her the grab-bag ring for kid fun. I went over there and peeked in the door. A new sky-pilot was in the pulpit, just turned loose on his remarks. Sizing him up, I saw that he was a stem-winding, quarter-hour striking, eight-day talker that would swell up and bust if he wasn’t allowed to run down. In the third row, I saw Susie’s hair. There I’d come a hundred miles and more to say good-by to her, and only two hours to spare; and there that preacher was taking my time, the time that I’d enlisted to fight three years for. It was against nature, so I signalled to the usher and told him that Miss Susie Latham was wanted at home on important business. The usher was one of the people that are born clumsy. The darn fool, instead of going up and prodding her shoulder and getting her out sort of quiet, went up and told the regular exhorter who was sitting up on the platform; and the regular, instead of putting him on, told the visiting preacher. The old geezer was deaf. “How thankful we should be, my brethren, that this hopeless eternity—” he was saying, when the regular parson broke out of his high-back chair and tapped him on the broadcloth and began to whisper. “Hey?” says the stranger. “Miss Susie Latham,” says the regular preacher, between a whisper and a holler. “What about her?” “Wanted at home,” so that you could hear him all through the church. “Oh!” says the parson. “Brothers and sisters, I am requested to announce that Miss Susie Latham is wanted at home on important business—that this hopeless eternity is set as a guide to our feet—” and all the rest of the spiel. And me feeling as comfortable as a lost heifer in a blizzard—forty kinds of a fool. She came down the aisle, looking red and white by turns, with all the people necking her way. Before I’d got time to explain why I did it, her mother got nervous, thinking there must be some trouble, and came trailing out after her. Then her kid sister couldn’t stand the strain, and followed suit. That family reunion on the porch spoiled all the chance that I had to see Susie alone, because when they heard why I came, and how I was going to be Striped Rock’s hero, they were for giving me a Red Cross reception then and there. Only two hours more until train time, and the old lady had to rush me down to the house for lunch—and me with the rest of my life to eat in! But I shook her and the kid sister at last, and got Susie alone. I tried to tell her—and I couldn’t. I could say that I was going to do my best and maybe die for my country, and there I stalled and balked, her looking the other way all pretty and pink, and giving me not a word either way to bless myself with. Says I finally: “And if I come back, I suppose that you’ll be married, Susie?” and she says: