Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/353

Rh "And," Aunt Augusta directed Syringa, "don't you go to pulling down the parlor-shades to-morrow either, like a fool. If Reba wants things the way they were for him, then let her have 'em that way. 'Tisn't much comfort, but it may be a little, and if she cares for him the way we saw she did there on the stairs—well, I guess she needs all the kindness we can give her."

To David she said, "Don't you say a single cross word to Reba, David Jerome, if you have to bite your tongue out stopping yourself. You hear?"

"Who wants to say a cross word to her," David retorted. "You better mind your own business, Augusta."

One day Reba, coming home as usual at noon, after her morning in the town-hall, saw something unfamiliar hanging in the parlor window. It was a small red flag with a single blue star on a white field in the center of it. It was hanging in the very window where she had watched Nathan waving to her as he went down the hill, three weeks ago. Reba had never seen a service-flag before. In October, 1917, there were not many of them to be seen.

"I got it down in Union," Aunt Augusta explained to Reba in the hall. "Down there you'll see a flag like that hanging up in the front windows of lots of the houses. Sometimes there's more than one star, though, for each star stands for a boy who's gone to the war. I thought we ought to hang up a star in our front window for the one who has gone to war from here."

Reba's eyes suddenly filled with tears. A blue star