Over behind the hill balsams were fragrant in the August sun, unaware that in South America there is another fragrant balsam, named tolu, whence toluene. Hewn out among the balsams lay Dr. Rich’s garden, on which he had labored for nearly half a century. In it were sweet peas of every hue, and green peas now ready to eat. The nodules on the roots had stored up nitrogen along with ravishing colors and delicious taste. But little the old soldier suspected that the grandsons of his comrades were taking toluene out of tar, to mix with nitrogen and pack into shrapnel. Nor, when he lovingly surveyed the yellow crystals that his son had left him to soothe the pain of burns, did he suspect that Americans were filling bombs with that stuff and shipping them to France for the ammunition dumps of the Canadian army. September, and rock-rose shone with goldenrod like ore among the quartz. Then came a letter from France. Horatio had ceased to hate the Germans, but still stuck to his theory of unifying earth by nitrogen. The only way to persuade men that earth is holy was to show them the leveling effect of explosives. The war was pretty terrible, but he thought it much less terrible than might have been expected in an age so scientific. Jean had seen for a month that there was no returning to college. Her mother needed her, and she was happy to stay. Studying chemistry was out of the question, but she would perfect herself in Ojibway and she would read Lucretius. The latter enterprise was quickly accomplished. She who loved her Vergil had no difficulty with the hexameters of the great forerunner of chemistry. It interested her to think of everything as made of atoms, and it was more decent to regard Iphigenia’s soul as made of atoms than to cut Iphigenia’s throat. She had dried a lot of blueberries in the Indian fashion, and canned three sorts of berries, and made jelly of choke-cherries. So she sent Horatio a Thanksgiving box of goodies all the way to France. By way of silent comfort she had received a gift from a young Indian, the Bluebird. It was a collie pup who lacked a name. She dubbed him Agricola, in honor of Julius Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus. Agricola understood three languages perfectly, and she thought she’d better teach him Latin. Chapter 8. Oxygen Marvin finally accepted Grein’s invitation and abandoned the study of fuels. He was getting nervous about the achievements of German chemists. Those laborious beasts, themselves sixty percent oxygen, were uniting atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen with alarming results. They had placed the German farmer beyond fear of famine and the German army beyond fear of ammunition shortage. All they needed now to conquer the world was to capture the heat hidden in atomic nuclei. Suppose they should stumble on the secret while studying lead!