“I am in earnest about this,” Miss Wheatly declared; “I am tired of this eternal talk of national service and nothing coming of it.  Now, if any of you know of a hard, full-sized woman’s job that I can do, you may lead me to it!”

Then the meeting began.  There was a very enthusiastic speaker who told of the great gift that Canada had given to the Empire, the gift of men and wheat, bread and blood—­the sacrament of empire.  She then told of what a sacrifice the men make who go to the front, who lay their young lives down for their country and do it all so cheerfully.  “And now,” she said, “what about those of us who stay at home, who have three good meals every day, who sleep in comfortable beds and have not departed in any way from our old comfortable way of living.  Wouldn’t you like to do something to help win the war?”

There was a loud burst of applause here, but Miss Wheatly sat with a heavy frown on her face.

“Wasn’t that a perfectly wonderful speech?” the secretary whispered to her when the speaker had finished with a ringing verse of poetry all about sacrifice and duty.

“It is all the same old bunk,” Miss Wheatly said bitterly; “I often wonder how they can speak so long and not make one practical suggestion.  Wouldn’t you like to help win the war?  That sounds so foolish—­of course we would like to win the war.  It is like the old-fashioned evangelists who used to say, ’All who would like to go to heaven will please stand up.’  Everybody stood, naturally.”

While they were whispering, they missed the announcement that the president was making, which was that there was a young girl from the North Country who had come to the meeting and wished to say a few words.  There was a deep, waiting silence, and then a small voice began to speak.  It was Miss Polly Rogowski from the Abilene Valley District.

There was no fear in Polly’s heart—­she was not afraid of anything.  Not being a lady, of course, and having no reputation to sustain, and being possessed with one thought, and complete master of it, her speech had true eloquence.  She was so small that the women at the back of the room had to stand up to see her.

“I live at Abilene Valley and there are lots of us.  I am fourteen years old and Mary is twelve, and Annie is eleven, and Mike is ten, and Peter is nine, and Ivan is seven, and Olga is six, and that is all we have old enough to go to school; but there are lots more of other children in our neighborhood, but our teacher has gone away to the war and we cannot get another one, for lady-teachers are all too scared, but I don’t think they would be if they would only come, for we will chop the wood, and one of us will stay at night and sleep on the floor, and we will light the fires and get the breakfast, and we bring eggs and cream and everything like that, and we could give the teacher a cat and a dog; and the girl that had done the best work all week always got to scrub the floor when our last teacher was there; and we had a nice garden—­and flowers, and now there is not anything, and the small children are forgetting what Mr. Ellis taught them; for our school has been closed all last summer, and sometimes Peter and Ivan and the other little boys go over to the cabin and look in at the windows, and it is all so quiet and sad—­they cry.”