close. She thought she could see the rings of blue with white dots in their centers which were said to be visible through a powerful telescope when the fighting was intense.

Next day she applied for an issue of clothes. The elderly woman smiled and shook her head. "You're very pretty. You wouldn't be beautiful but you'd certainly be lovely and feminine in a dress. Wish I could issue you an outfit."

"But I haven't drawn any clothes in over eight months," Sue said. "We used to get clothes four times a year, then twice. Now—"

"It can't be helped," the woman explained. "They've cut production to put more labor and machinery in the heavy industries. Even the boys at the Centers aren't getting as many uniforms as they were. And they'll get fewer next year."

"Oh!"

"If your denims and sweaters have been damaged—"

"No. I've three of each. They are just worn."

"Then you'll have to make out. The less we have here the more the men can have when they go out. You understand?"

Sunday she took advantage of the shorter working-day to go with her mother to the vale between the cultivated rows of cedar and the woodland. She had come here at every opportunity since she could remember. It was here she had been taught that there was something beyond the transient physical life.

Today they walked on through the wood to a point where they could see the lake which had been made by the strike so many years ago. It was more than five miles across and was said to be half a mile deep.

Coming back, they saw a number of uniformed men in the vale. They were gray and wrinkled and some were crippled. She felt her mother's fingers close tight on her arm, but curiosity wouldn't allow her to stop.

She stared. He was stooped, his face a mass of wrinkles, his hair snow-white. And he was gibbering. He seemed to recognize no one.

She was suddenly seized with a tremor. A wild raging impulse surged through her. Blindly and without thought, she ran, heedless of bushes, briars and stones. She didn't stop until she reached the dormitory. She fell face down on her bed and dug her nails into her cheeks and into the flesh about her eyes to make it contract.

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