Women and War
thing to be done was plain to this young American, who had never fought, nor seen fighting, in his life. He rose, dressed, took his musket, joined the little group of townsmen on the Common, and fell before the first volley fired by the British soldiers. His wife (he had been married less than a year) ran to the door. He crawled across the Common, bleeding heavily, and died on his threshold at her feet.
It is a very simple incident, and it holds all the elements which make for national life. A cause to support, a man to support it, a woman to call for help when the supreme moment comes. Something like it must have happened over and over again in the blood-soaked land of Belgium. Yet we find women to-day talking and writing as if none of their sex had anything at stake in the defence of their violated homes, as if they had no sacred rights bound up with the sacred rights of men. The National American
115
