I thought I would keep my
grief in my own heart and fight it out alone."
And fight it out he did. Letters kept coming for several weeks after
the cable, letters full of girlish hope about France, and full of joy
at the thoughts of seeing "daddy" soon. This was the hardest of all.
He could not tear up those precious letters. Her last words and
thoughts were treasures; all that he had left; but they were
spear-thrusts of pain also. But bravely he fought out his battle of
grief, and tenderly he ministered, mothers and fathers of America, to
your boys. Is it any wonder that they loved him, that they went to him
with their loneliness and their heartaches; is it any wonder that he
understood all the troubles that they brought and that they bring to
him?
And then there was the young secretary who had just landed in France.
It had been hard to leave home, especially hard to leave that little
tot of a six-year-old girl, the apple of his eye.
Some of us who have such experiences will understand this story; some
of us who remember what the parting from loved ones meant when we went
to France. One such I remember vividly.
There was the night before in the hotel in San Francisco, when "Betty,"
six-year-old, said, "Don't cry, mother. Be brave like Betty," and who
even admonished her daddy in the same way, "Don't cry, daddy! Be brave
like Betty!" for it was just as hard for the daddy to keep the tears
back, as he thought of the separation, as it was for the mother.
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