"I thought they were the hardest women in the world," he said, "for as
I watched them saying farewell to their boys there wasn't a tear.
There was laughter everywhere, shouting and smiles, as if those poor
boys were going off to school, or to a picnic, when we all knew that
they were going to certain death.
"I felt like cursing their indifference to the common impulses of
motherhood. I watched a thousand mothers and women as that train
started, and I didn't see a tear. They stood waving their hands and
smiling until the train was out of sight. I turned in disgust to walk
away when a woman near me fainted, and I caught her as she fell. Then
a low moan went up all over that station platform. It was as if those
mothers moaned as one. There was no hysteria, just a low moan that
swept over them. I saw dozens of them sink to the floor unconscious.
They had kept their grief to themselves until their lads had gone.
They had sent their boys away with a smile, and had kept their
heartache buried until those lads had departed."
I think that this is characteristic of the triumphant motherhood of the
whole world. It is a Silhouette of Sorrow, but it has a background of
the golden glory of bravery which is the admiration of all the world.
A recent despatch says that a woman, an American, sent her boy away
smiling a few weeks ago, and then dropped dead on the station, dead of
grief.
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