It was a photograph from a newspaper, two or three columns wide, neatly cut out with a pair of scissors which had eliminated the unnecessary caption, for the picture spoke all too plainly for itself. It showed a battle-­exhausted marine lying in a burlap bunk fast asleep, his right arm (as if by habit) around a heavy Garand rifle, a packed kit of some kind resting on his chest, and his left hand relaxed and limp on his stomach—the only part of him which did not seem, in spite of his dead sleep, tensed, and ready for instant action. He wore a wrinkled shirt open at the throat and loose tropical shorts exposing thick bare thighs and knees, slightly hairy and probably dirty. He had a couple of days’ growth of beard so that a potential mustache of some size and width was plainly outlined. His eyebrows were raised, his eyes closed in sleep; his nose was short, almost pug; the mouth was wide and attractive, with tightly closed lips; the chin was strong. He was a very rugged, masculine, and mature-­looking young man, possibly a good deal younger than he looked; but the chief effect of the picture was one of utter exhaustion, with the fellow passionately at rest (perhaps dreaming of home, she thought sentimentally), yet prepared to spring to automatic action the moment the siren started screaming. Dust-cloth in hand, she stood looking down at the picture, absorbed and moved. The relaxed curling hand showed a dark fuzz on the back; the rifle must have rested heavy on the weary shoulder and in the crook of the arm. Her heart went out to the dog-­tired marine, dead to the world, and, for the time being, blessedly at rest and safe: she would like to have lifted the rifle gently from off his shoulder, oh carefully so as not to disturb him, and then stand by to see that the alarm of the siren, which would so rudely ruin everything, was not sounded. The photograph had a compelling beauty; realistic in the extreme, yet poetic, it evoked the Drum-­Taps poems of Whitman of which her husband was so fond (O Tan-­Faced Prairie Boy).—And at this reminder of her husband and where she was, she put the clipping back on the flat of the desk and replaced the blotter as before.