Page:Patches (1928).pdf/269

 As he sat there by the window he recalled how this strange adventure had all come about. It seemed to him more like a weird dream than a stern reality in his own young life.

Two weeks before he had been sent down to Wyanne on business by his uncle. He had been sitting in a restaurant one morning eating bacon and eggs and drinking hot coffee when as he happened to pick up a newspaper while he was waiting for more bacon, his eye fell upon an account of the hideous atrocity in Cuba. Some Spanish soldiers had captured half a dozen unfortunate peons and in order to get these Cubans to reveal the whereabouts of General Garcia's army they had crushed their hands and feet in a cane-crushing mill on a sugar plantation. As Larry pictured this hideous scene his eyes filled with tears and to cover his embarrassment he arose and went to the window. The first thing that his eyes fell upon as he looked across the street was Old Glory waving above the recruiting office just over the way. The beautiful flag was rising and falling in the morning wind and as Larry beheld it he thought it the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in the whole world; and when he remembered that this flag sheltered one hundred million happy people and that it protected every citizen in the land, rich or poor, his love for the flag which he had always worshipped redoubled; and without stopping to think