title="20"/> for I’ve joined the Flying Corps, and I’m going to be an army eagle!”

“Flying Corps?” repeated Nathalie dazedly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, Blue Robin, that I’m going to be an aviator, a sky pilot,” replied the boy jubilantly. “I made an application some time ago to the chief signal officer at Washington. I was found an eligible applicant, for, you know, my course in the technical school in New York did me up fine. To-day I passed my physical examinations, and am now enlisted in the Signal Corps of the Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps. I’m off next week to the Military Aëronautics School at Princeton University. It’s an eight-weeks’ course. If I put it over,—and you bet your life I do,” Dick ground his teeth determinedly,—“I go into training at one of the Flying Schools, and then I’ll soon be a regular bird of the air; and if I don’t help Uncle Sam win the war, and manage to drop a few bombs on those Fritzies, I’ll go hang!”

For one awful moment Nathalie stood silent, staring at her brother in dumb despair. Then she turned, and with a blur in her eyes and a tightening of her throat, blindly groped for the stairway. But no! Dick’s hand shot out, he caught the hurrying figure in his grasp, and the next moment Nathalie was sobbing on his breast.

“That’s all right, little sis,” exclaimed the boy with a break in his voice, as he pressed the brown head closer. Then he cried, in an attempt at jocularity, “Just get it all out of your system, every last drop of that salted brine, Blue Robin, and then we’ll talk business.”

This somewhat matter-of-fact declaration acted like a cold shower-bath on the girl, as, with a convulsive shiver, she caught her breath, and although she burrowed deeper into the snug of her brother’s arm her tears were stayed.

“Dick, how could you do it? Think of mother!” Then she raised her eyes, and went on, “Oh, I can’t bear the thought of your getting ki—” But the girl could not say the dreaded word, and again her head went down against the rough gray of Dick’s coat.

“Well, Blue Robin, I’m afraid you have lost that cheery little tru-al-lee of yours,” teased the boy humorously. “You’ve cried so hard you’re eye-twisted. In the first place, I don’t intend getting killed if I can help it. And I can’t help leaving mother. You must remember I’m a citizen of the United States—” the boy was thinking of his first vote cast the fall before—“and I am bound by my oath of allegiance to the country to uphold its principles, even if it means the breaking of my mother’s apron-strings,” he added jokingly.

“Oh, Dick, don’t try to be funny,” Nathalie managed to say somewhat sharply, as she drew away from her brother’s arm and dropped limply on the steps of the stairs, in such an attitude of hopeless despair that Dick was at the end of his tether to know what to say. He stared down at the girl, unconsciously rubbing his hand through his hair, a trick the boy had when perplexed.

Suddenly a bit of a smile leaped into his eyes as he cried, in a hopelessly resigned tone, “All right, sis, seeing that you feel this way about it I’ll just send in my resignation. It will let the boys know I’ve laid down on my job, for if you and mother are going to howl like two cats, a fellow can’t do a thing but stay at home and be a sissy, a baby-tender, a dish-washer-er-er—”

“Oh, Dick, don’t talk nonsense,” broke in Nathalie sharply. “I didn’t say that you were not to go, but,—why—oh, I just can’t help feeling awfully bad when I read all those terrible things in the paper.” Her voice quivered pathetically as she finished.

“Well, don’t read them, then,” coolly rejoined Dick. “Just steer clear of all that hysterical gush and brace up. My job is to serve my country,—she wants me. By Jove, before she gets out of this hole she’ll need every mother’s son of us. And I’ve got to do it in the best way I can, by enlisting before the draft comes. I’ll not only have a chance to do better work, a prospect of quicker promotion, but, if you want to look at the sordid end of it, I’ll get more pay. And as to being killed, as you wailed, if you and mother will insist upon seeing it black, an aviator’s chance of life is ten to one better—if he’s on to his job—than that of the fellow on the ground. So cheer up, Blue Robin. I’m all beat hollow, for I’ve been trying to cheer up mother for the last hour.”

“Oh, what does mother say?” asked a very faint voice, just as if the girl did not know how her mother felt, and had been feeling for some time.

“Say! Gee whiz! I don’t know what she would have said if she had voiced her sentiments,” replied Dick resignedly. “But the worst of the whole business was that she took it out in weeping about a tank of tears; all over my best coat, too,” he added ruefully. “You women are enough to make a fellow go stiff.

“Now see here, Blue Robin, don’t disappoint me!” suddenly cried the lad, as he stared appealingly into his sister’s brown eyes. “Why, I thought that you would be my right-hand man. I knew mother would make a time at first, but you,—I thought you had grit; you, a Pioneer, too. Don’t you know, girl—” added Dick, rubbing the back of his hand quickly across his eyes, “that I’ve got to go? Don’t you forget that. I’m on the job, every inch of it, but, thunderation, I’m no more keen to go ‘over there’ and have those Hun devils cut me up like sausage, than you or mother. But I’m a man and I’ve got to live up to the business of being a man, and not a mollycoddle.”

But Nathalie had suddenly come to her senses. Perhaps it was the brush of the boy’s hand across his eyes, or the quivering note in his voice, but she roused. She had been selfish; instead of crying like a ninny she should have cheered. “Oh, Dick,” she exclaimed contritely, standing up and facing him suddenly, “I’m all wrong. I didn’t mean to cry, and I wouldn’t have either,” she explained excusingly, “if you had only let me go up-stairs.

“No, Dick, I would not have you be a slacker, or a mollycoddle, or wash the dishes,” she added with a faint attempt at a smile, “and we haven’t any babies to tend. Yes, old boy, I don’t want you to lie down in the traces, so let’s shake on it, and I’ll try to brace up mother, too,” added the girl, as she held out her hand to her brother.

“Now that’s the stuff, Nat, old girl,” cried the boy with gleaming eyes, as he took the girl’s hand and held it tightly, “and while I’m fighting to uphold the family honor and glory,—remember father was a Rough Rider,—you stay with dear old mumsie. Keep her cheered up, and see that everything is made easy for her. Do all you can to take my place here at home. Yes, Blue Robin, you be the home soldier. Gee whiz, you be the home guard!” added the boy in a sudden burst of inspiration.

“The home guard! Yes, that’s what I’ll be,” cried the girl, her eyes lighting with a sudden glow. “And then I’ll be doing my bit, won’t I? I’ll cheer up mother, and do all I can,” she added resolutely; “and don’t worry any more, Dick, for now,”—the girl drew a long breath, “I’ll be on the job as well as you.”

And then Nathalie, with a wave of her hand at the boy as he stood gazing up at her with his eyes fired with loyal determination, hurried up the stairs, straight on and up to the very top of the house to her usual weeping-place, for, oh, those hateful tears would not be restrained, and if she did not have her cry out she would strangle!

Ah, here she was in her