Besides, she had too much else on her mind—­“to start doing that.”

As the war in Europe had progressed—­America drawing nearer the crimson whirlpool with every passing month—­a Red Cross chapter was organized at New Bethel.  Mary took active part in the work, and whenever visitors came to speak at the meetings, they seldom went away without being entertained at the house on the hill.

“I love to think of it,” she told Aunt Patty one day.  “The greatest organization of mercy ever known—­and practically all women’s work!  Doesn’t that mean a lot to you, Aunt Patty?  If women can do such wonderful things for the Red Cross, why can’t they do wonderful things in other ways?”

Her own question set her thinking, and something seemed to tell her that now or never she must watch her chance to make old dreams come true.  Surely never before in the history of the world had woman come to the front with such a splendid arrival.

“We’ll get things yet, Aunt Delia,” she whispered in confidence, “so that folks will be just as proud of a girl baby as a boy baby.”  Whereupon she wagged her finger as though to say, “You mark my words!” and went rolling away to hear a distinguished lecturer who had just returned from Europe with a message to the women in America of what their sisters were doing across the seas.

The address was given at the Red Cross rooms, and as Mary listened she sewed upon a flannel swaddling robe that was later to go to Siberia lest a new-born babe might perish.  At first she listened conscientiously enough to the speaker—­“What our European sisters have done in agriculture—­”

“I do believe at times that it’s the women more than the men who make a country great,” she thought as she heard of the women ploughing, planting, reaping.  To Mary’s mind each stoical figure glowed with the light of heroism, and she nodded her head as she worked.

“Just as I’ve always said,” she mused; “there’s nothing a man can do that a woman can’t do.”

From her chair by the window she chanced to look out at an old circus poster across the street.

“Now that’s funny, too,” she thought, her needle suspended; “I never thought of that before—­but even in such things as lion taming and trapeze performing—­where you would think a woman would really be at a disadvantage—­she isn’t at all.  She’s just as good as a man!”

The voice of the speaker broke in upon her thoughts.

“I am now going to tell you,” she said, “what the women of Europe are doing in the factories—­”

And oh, how Mary listened, then!

It was a long talk—­I cannot begin to give it here—­but she drank in every word, and hungered and thirsted for more.

“There is not an operation in factory, foundry or laboratory,” began the speaker, “where women are not employed—­”

As in a dream Mary seemed to see the factory of Spencer & Son.  The long lines of men had vanished, and in their places were women, clear-eyed, dexterous and happy at escaping from the unpaid drudgery of housework.  “It may come to that, too,” she thought, “if we go into war.”