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Then, at last, the draft bill was passed, and she persuaded him to wait and take his chance.

We were at a Red Cross class, being taught how to take foreign bodies out of the ear, when the news came. Tish was not paying much attention, because she considered that if a soldier got a bullet or shrapnel in his ear, a syringe would not help him much. She had gone out of the room, therefore, and Aggie had just had a bean put in her auditory canal, and was sure it would swell before they got it again, when Tish returned. She said the bill had passed, and that the age limit was thirty-one.

Mrs. Ostermaier, who was using the syringe, let it slip and shot a stream of water into Aggie’s right eye.

“Thirty-one!” she said. “Well, I suppose that includes your nephew, Miss Tish.”

“Not at all,” said Tish. “He will have his thirty-second birthday on the fifth of June, and he probably won’t have to register at all. It’s likely to be July before they’re ready.”

“Oh, the fifth of June!” said Mrs. Ostermaier, and gave Aggie another squirt.

Now Tish and I have talked this over since, and it may only be a coincidence. But Mrs. Ostermaier’s cousin is married to a Congressman from the west, and she sends the Ostermaiers all his speeches. Mr. Ostermaier sends on his sermon, too, in exchange, and every now and then Mrs. Ostermaier comes running in to Tish with something delivered in our national legislature which she claims was conceived in our pulpit.

Anyhow, when the draft day was set, it was the fifth of June!

Aggie and I went to Tish at once, and found her sitting very quietly with the blinds down, and Hannah snivelling in the kitchen.

“It’s that woman,” Tish said. “When I think of the things I’ve done for them, and the way I’ve headed lists and served church suppers and made potato salad and packed barrels, it makes me sick.”

Aggie sat down beside her and put a hand on her knee.

“I know, Tish,” she said. “Mr. Wiggins was set on going to the Spanish war. He said that he could not shoot, but that he would be valuable as an observer, from church towers and things, because he was used to being in the air. He would have gone, too, but—-“

“If he goes,” Tish said, “he will never come back. I know it. I’ve known it ever since I ran over that black cat the other day.”

Well, we had to leave her, as Aggie was buying wool for the Army and Navy League. We went out, very low in our minds. What was our surprise, therefore, on returning late that afternoon, to find Tish cheerfully hoeing in the garden she had planted in the vacant lot next door, while Hannah followed her and gathered up in a basket the pieces of brick, broken bottles and buried bones that Tish unearthed.

“You poor dear!” Aggie said, going toward her. “I know just how you feel. I—-“

“Get out!” Tish yelled, in a furious tone. “Look what you’re doing! Great heavens, don’t you see what you’ve done? That was a potato plant.”

We tried to get out, although I could see nothing but a few weeds, but she yelled at us every moment and at last I gave it up.

“I’d rather stay here, Tish,” I said, “if you don’t mind. I can keep the dogs away, and along in the autumn, when it’s safe to move, you can take me home, or put me in a can, along with the other garden stuff.”

Here Tish fired a brick at Hannah’s basket, but struck her in the knee cap instead, and down she went on what Tish said was six egg plants. In the resulting conversation I escaped, and went up to Tish’s sitting room.

Tish followed us soon after, and jerked the window shades to the top.

“There’s nothing like getting close to nature,” she said. “I feel like a different woman, after an hour or so of the soil.”