Page:Arthur Stranger--The Stranger.djvu/19

Rh something gave me a jolt this morning. Just what that was wouldn't mean much to you. But we're all glad to think that the war is won, that the agony's over, and we're glad to get the home fires burning again, and once more back into harness to make up for lost time. And I guess you want to be a success, to make good, just about as much as I do. But there have been times when I was thinking so much about being a success that I almost forgot about being a Canadian. When I think what the boys from the land of the Maple Leaf did over there, I get a thrill out of it. When I remember what they made the very name of 'Canada' mean, I'm proud that I belong to the land of the Beaver. But to-day we've got to bring our patriotism home from Flanders and plant it right in our own front-yards. We talk about the war being over. It is over. But if your doctor took your appendix out and you heard him hollering as you came out of the ether: 'Your operation's over—get off the table—get out,' you wouldn't thank him for either what he did or what he didn't do. And that's about what we're up against here in Canada to-day. The big fire is out; the Kaiser's canned; we've paid the price and saved the world. But that's not all. We've got to get that old sword-blade pounded back into a plow-share. And that means a different kind of work, a kind where clear thinking takes the place of high feeling. You know what I'm driving at. You've already heard enough about how your country's calling on you, not to come to her help, but to come to your own help, with thrift. She's calling on you to get into partnership with Johnny Canuck, the lad who's crowding in next to the rail in this twentieth century race for prosperity. We're not a light-tongued brood, we sons of the Big North. We don't wear our hearts on our jumper-sleeves. But if it's true that men have to be crazy about something, you've got a country that you're always safe in being crazy about, for you can't beat her, boys, from the tip of the North Pole to the bed-plates of the South. Stay crazy about her, for she'll justify you in the end. But when she's doing this for you, you've got to do something for her. You've got to get together. You've got to stand together. You've got to get that feeling of one family, to sink or swim. And when you wake up to that you'll wake up to the fact that this isn't a Loan they're talking about, but a collaboration in profit-taking. So when I stand here and say that I'm going to dig down for this Loan, on my own hook, that I'm going to dig down until I've a