THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published April 1917
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM
Remember, boy, that behind all these menyou have to do with, behind officers, andgovernment, and people even, there is theCountry Herself, your Country, and thatyou belong to Her as you belong to your ownMother.
The Man Without a Country.
We are virtually at war. By thetime this is published, perhaps thedeclaration will have been made.
And even now, all over the country,on this bright spring day, there aremothers who are waiting to know whatthey must do. Mothers who are facingthe day with heads up and shouldersback, ready to stand steady when theblow falls; mothers who shrink andtremble, but ready, too; and othermothers, who cannot find the strengthto give up to the service of their countrythe boys who will always be littleboys to them.
I love my country. There is nothingshe can ask that I will not do. I amready to live for her or die for her.Last stand of the humanities on earth,realization of a dream and fulfillmentof an ideal, my home, my native land,—thatis America to me. Because Iam a woman, I cannot die for my country,but I am doing a far harder thing.
I am giving a son to the service ofhis country, the land he loves.
When I was a child, I lived on aquiet, tree-shaded street in this verycity where now I am writing this. And,late in May of each year, when theailanthus trees were in blossom, thestreet put up fresh curtains and red-washedthe brick pavements. Thecobblestones were swept, too. Andthen the procession came.
I was twelve, I think, before I beganto get a lump in my throat as thelong line of veterans went by. It wasa long line then. I did not know exactlywhy I cried, except that thosemen and those tattered flags stood forsomething heroic and very sad. Iknow now, but it has taken years toput it into words, and in those yearsthe line has shortened to a handful.Even the one-armed drummer hasgone now. The street, which was roughand hard to march on in those days,has been made smooth for their feet,but few are left who can march to thatquiet God’s-acre on the hill above.
Now I know why, as a child, I wept.Those men had fought for somethingthat was a part of me, like my mother,or my home: for my country.
Many years later I again saw marchingmen. But now the men were young,and there were no flags and no drums.They were marching into battle. Andthey were not fighting for my country.
But they were fighting for the idealon which my country was founded, forhumanity ag