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The Next of Kin
Those who Wait and Wonder
By
Nellie L. McClung

Author of "Sowing Seeds in Denny," "The Second Chance,"
"The Black Creek Stopping House," and
"In Times like These"

TORONTO
THOMAS ALLEN
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1917

1917, BY NELLIE L. McCLUNG
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published November 1917
The Next of Kin
1
HOPE

Down through the ages, a picture has come of the woman who weepeth:
Tears are her birthright, and sorrow and sadness her portion:
Weeping endures for a night, and prolongeth its season
Far in the day, with the will of God

For a reason!
Such has the world long accepted, as fitting and real;
Plentiful have been the causes of grief, without stinting;
Patient and sad have the women accepted the ruling,
Learning life's lessons, with hardly a word of complaint

At the schooling.
But there's a limit to tears, even tears, and a new note is sounding:
Hitherto they have wept without hope, never seeing an ending;
Now hope has dawned in their poor lonely hearts,
And a message they're sending
Over the world to their sisters in weeping, a message is flashing,
Flashing the brighter, for the skies are so dark

And war thunders crashing!
And this is the message the war-stricken women send out

In their sorrow:
"Yesterday and to-day have gone wrong,
But we still have to-morrow!"

Contents
Foreword
1
I.
Beach Days
22
II.
Working In!
35
III.
Let's Pretend
46
IV.
Pictures
53
V.
Saving Our Souls
58
VI.
Surprises
70
VII. Conservation
92
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Next of Kin, by Nellie L. McClung.
Published November 1917
2
VIII. "Permission"
112
IX.
The Slacker\u2014in Uniform
142
X.
National Service\ue000One Way
154
XI.
The Orphan
171
XII. The War-Mother
193
XIII. The Believing Church
210
XIV. The Last Reserves
227
XV. Life's Tragedy
241
XVI. Waiting!
247
The Next of Kin
FOREWORDToC

It was a bleak day in November, with a thick, gray sky, and a great, noisy, blustering wind that had a knack of facing you, no matter which way you were going; a wind that would be in ill-favor anywhere, but in northern Alberta, where the wind is not due to blow at all, it was what the really polite people call "impossible." Those who were not so polite called it something quite different, but the meaning is the same.

There are districts, not so very far from us, where the wind blows so constantly that the people grow
accustomed to it; they depend on it; some say they like it; and when by a rare chance it goes down for a few
hours, they become nervous, panicky, and apprehensive, always listening, expecting something to happen. But
we of the windless North, with our sunlit spaces, our quiet days and nights, grow peevish, petulant, and full of
grouch when the wind blows. We will stand anything but that. We resent wind; it is not in the bond; we will
have none of it!

"You won't have many at the meeting to-day," said the station agent cheerfully, when I went into the small waiting-room to wait for the President of the Red Cross Society, who wanted to see me before the meeting. "No, you won't have many a day like this, although there are some who will come out, wind or no wind, to hear a woman speak\ue001it's just idle curiosity, that's all it is."

"Oh, come," I said, "be generous; maybe they really think that she may have something to say!"

"Well, you see," said this amateur philosopher, as he dusted the gray-painted sill of the wicket with a large red-and-white handkerchief, "itis great to hear a woman speak in public, anyway, even if she does not do it very well. It's sorto' like seeing a pony walking on its hind legs; it's clever even if it's not natural. You will have some all right\ue002I'm going over myself. There would have been a big crowd in if it hadn't been for the wind. You see, you've never been here before and that all helps."

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Next of Kin, by Nellie L. McClung.
Contents
3
of 00

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