You are the best bugler in Canada. What do _you_ want to
do?"
For an instant Billy was speechless. His nerves shook with a boy's first
fear of battle. His old gun-shyness had him in its grip. Then his heart
swelled with the pride aroused by his father's words; he raised his
head, his chin, his eyes, and suddenly his look caught a picture hanging
in its deep gold frame on the wall. It was a picture of a little old
gray-haired woman--a sad-faced old woman dressed in black and wearing a
widow's cap. It was a picture of Queen Victoria.
Then Billy's voice came.
"I can't remember ever having heard my mother speak, but"--pointing to
the picture--"_she_ has been calling me ever since the war began. I know
I'm only a big kid, and I can't fight with the men, but I _can_ bugle,
and, Dad, you and I'll go together."
Once more they looked at each other as man to man. Then Billy's father
shook hands with him--a hard, true, clinging shake--and, without a
word, left the room.
Oh, what a day it was for the little city when the picked men of the
regiment marched out in their khaki uniforms, halting at the railway
station for all the last good-byes before the train pulled them out
eastward, to board the transport ships that swung so impatiently in
Halifax harbor! The whole town was at the station, every boy in the
place shouting and cheering and wishing he were grown up, were clad in
khaki, were shouldering an Enfield rifle, and were going to fight for
the queen.
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