IN TIMES
LIKE THESE

BY

NELLIE L. McCLUNG

Author of "Sowing Seeds In Danny," "The Second Chance,"
and "The Black Creek Stopping-house."

TORONTO
McLEOD & ALLEN
1915

COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

I

TO THE SUPERIOR PERSONS

Who would not come to hear a woman speak being firmly convinced that it is not "natural."

Who takes the rather unassailable ground that "men are men and women are women."

Who answers all arguments by saying, "Woman's place is the home" and, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," and even sometimes flashes out with the brilliant retort, "It would suit those women better to stay at home and darn their children's stockings."

To all these Superior Persons, men and women, who are inhospitable to new ideas, and even suspicious of them, this book is respectfully dedicated by

THE AUTHOR.

Upon further deliberation I am beset with the fear that the above dedication may not "take." The Superior Person may not appreciate the kind and neighborly spirit I have tried to show. So I will dedicate this book again.

DEDICATION

II

Believing that the woman's claim to a common humanity is not an unreasonable one, and that the successful issue of such claim rests primarily upon the sense of fair play which people have or have not according to how they were born, and

Believing that the man or woman born with a sense of fair play, no matter how obscured it has become by training, prejudice, or unhappy experience, will ultimately see the light and do the square thing and—

Believing that the man or woman who has not been so endowed by nature, no matter what advantages of education or association, will always suffer from the affliction known as mental strabismus, over which no feeble human ward has any power, and which can only be cast out by the transforming power of God's grace.

Therefore to men and women everywhere who love a fair deal, and are willing to give it to everyone, even women, this book is respectfully dedicated by the author.

NELLIE L. McCLUNG.

CONTENTS

IN TIMES LIKE THESE

CHAPTER I

THE WAR THAT NEVER ENDS

If, at last the sword is sheathed,
And men, exhausted, call it peace,
Old Nature wears no olive wreath,
The weapons change—war does not cease.

The little struggling blades of grass
That lift their heads and will not die,
The vines that climb where sunbeams pass,
And fight their way toward the sky!

And every soul that God has made,
Who from despair their lives defend
And struggling upward through the shade,
Break every bond that will not bend,
These are the soldiers, unafraid
In the great war that has no end.

We will begin peaceably by contemplating the world of nature, trees and plants and flowers, common green things against which there is no law—for surely there is no corruption in carrots, no tricks in turnips, no mixed motive in marigolds.

To look abroad upon a peaceful field drowsing in the sunshine, lazily touched by a wandering breeze, no one would suspect that any struggle was going on in the tiny hearts of the flowers and grasses. The lilies of the field have long ago been said to toil not, neither spin, and the inference has been that they in common with all other flowers and plants lead a "lady's life," untroubled by any thought of ambition or activity. The whole world of nature seems to present a perfect picture of obedience and peaceful meditation.

But for all their quiet innocent ways, every plant has one ambition and will attain it by any means. Plants have one ambition, and therein they have the advantage of us, who sometimes have too many, and sometimes none at all! Their ambition