“Well-kept homes and hand-knit socks will never save the world,” said Alex’s mother.  “Look at Germany!  The German women are kind, patient, industrious, frugal, hard-working, everything that a woman ought to be, but it did not save them, or their country, and it will not save us.  We have allowed men to have control of the big things in life too long.  While we worked—­or played—­they have ruled.  My nearest neighbor is a German, and she and I have talked these things over.  She feels just the same as we do, and she sews for our Red Cross.  She says she could not knit socks for our soldiers, for they are enemies, but she makes bandages, for she says wounded men are not enemies, and she is willing to do anything for them.  She wanted to come to-day to hear you, but her husband would not let her have a horse, because he says he does not believe in women speaking in public, anyway!  I wanted her to come with us even if he did not like it, but she said that she dared not.”

“Were you not afraid of making trouble?” I asked.

Alex’s mother smiled.  “A quick, sharp fight is the best and clears up things.  I would rather be a rebel any time than a slave.  But of course it is easy for me to talk!  I have always been treated like a human being.  Perhaps it is just as well that she did not come.  Old Hans has long generations back of him to confirm him in his theory that women are intended to be men’s bondservants and that is why they are made smaller; it will all take time—­and other things.  The trouble has been with all of us that we have expected time to work out all of our difficulties, and it won’t; there is no curative quality in time!  And what I am most afraid of is that we will settle down after the war, and slip right back into our old ways,—­our old peaceful ways,—­and let men go on ruling the world, and war will come again and again.  Men have done their very best,—­I am not feeling hard to them,—­but I know, and the thoughtful men know, that men alone can never free the world from the blight of war; and if we go on, too gentle and sweet to assert ourselves, knitting, nursing, bringing children into the world, it will surely come to pass, when we are old, perhaps, and not able to do anything,—­but suffer,—­that war will come again, and we shall see our daughters’ children or our granddaughters’ children sent off to fight, and their heart-broken mothers will turn on us accusing eyes and say to us, ’You went through all this—­you knew what this means—­why didn’t you do something?’ That is my bad dream when I sit knitting, because I feel hard toward the women that are gone.  They were a poor lot, many of them.  I like now best of all Jennie Geddes who threw the stool at somebody’s head.  I forget what Jennie’s grievance was, but it was the principle that counts—­she had a conviction, and was willing to fight for it.  I never said these things—­until I got this.”  She still held the letter, with its red inscription, in her hand.  “But now I feel that I have