Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-07-27
A VOLUNTEER
By DOROTHY OK
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman
Writer

-HE village prodigal was one OF
the first to answer his country s
call for men to defend It, and to
enlist to 20 off and fight somewhere
IN France" Whereat those who
knew him marvelled.
He had never been Of any account,
you know. He had idled and loafed
while others toiled. He had sung
and drunk and danced while others
etroye. He had lived a parasite on
his poor old mother, who took in
boarders TO support him. So, when
he went off to the war, people SAID
never came back.
The volunteers went off in little
blaze of glory. With fluttering Of flags.
andre OF hands, but when the last
echo of the tumult and the shouting
had died, an old, gray-headed woman
sat alone In q darkened room, with
bowed head and desolate- face, try
ing to pierce with her imagination
the future into which the black sheep
had gone. f',
Knew What World Said
She knew very well what his world
said Of her boy. She knew his faults
as no other could know them. She
knew him to be lazy, shiftless, sell
fish, dissolute. There was no fiber
Of her heart that he had not wrung
with anguish time and time again.
She had suffered the death-in-life
Of the mother who sees all OF her am
billions and plans for her SON slain by
HIS own worthlessness. @
She had been scorched by the shame
that burns up woman's soul when
she realizes that her man Is weak.
Ing who can never hold up his head
a world Of men. .ss
Tor weary years she had never
heard sudden football on her door.
si6n. or the call Of an unexpected
Voice. without turning sick and faint
with apprehension Of some new ca
lamity he had brought upon her. She
knew 90 well, she had heard 90 often,
that sound most dreadful Of all that
ever comes into q woman's life-the
nhuff1ing heavy tread Of the feet
bringing home drunk-sodden boy to
his mother. sss @~s-~ q. -
Yet he was the only son OF his
mother and she was Q widow.
aesponslbls FOR He Life i
She never thought OF him without
roing through purgatory Of self-re-
Droach, or feeling that she was re-
nponnihle for his wasted life. She |
had not been firm with him when
he was q child, as she should have
been. She had not controlled him as
3 boy, as she should have done. In
al HIS Life she never punished him
Iot 3 fault, or denied him anything
that II was IN her power to give him.
How could she, when he looked at her
with his dead fathers eyes, and i'm
Dortuned her I'm the voice that had
Wheedled the heart out Of her bosom.
And he was all that she had in the
world.
As the volunteers marched away
other women had chung weeping to
their sons, She alone had been dry
eyed. She alone was glad to see her
boy 90. II seemed to her that God
was giving him another chance to be-
come q man instead OF o black sheep |
IA chance that her weakness and
tonderness denied him. -.
IN the army there would be infinite
strength to back his supine flabbi.
ness. There would be the iron curb
O. authority to control his wanton
win. There would be the very robe
and crown Of visible glory before eyes
that had seen nothing worth striving
for.
She knew that no man could go
INTO the baptism Of battle and come
out the same. He must needs be
worse or better for that crucial ex-
rcrience, and 30, In her darkened
room, the prodigal's mother knelt and
prayed Tor ell prodigaIs who had Of, I