"I can do it for a while," said Martha, "without you." Those two words
held the sacrifice. "Mamma is so nicely this summer, and by and by Aunt
Lucy may come, perhaps. I can do _quite_ well."
So Martha sat, for months and months, in the upstairs window alone.
There were martial marchings in the streets beneath; great guns
thundered out rejoicings; flags filled the air with crimson and blue,
like an aurora; she only sat and made little frocks and tiers for the
brothers and sisters. God knew how every patient needle thrust was
really also a woman's blow for her country.
And now, pale and thin with close, lonely work, the time had come to
her at last when it was right to take a respite; when everybody said it
must be; when Uncle David, just home from Japan, had put his hand in his
pocket and pulled out three new fifty-dollar bills, and said to them in
his rough way, "There, girls! Take that, and go your lengths." The war
was over, and among all the rest here were these two women-soldiers
honorably discharged, and resting after the fight.
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