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the Great Cashier of strife
A fine accounting let me
give.
Perhaps to-morrow I shall stand
Before his cage, prepared to
buy
New splendor for my native land:
Oh, God, then bravely let me
die!
If after I shall fall, shall rise
A fairer land than I have known,
I shall
not grudge my sacrifice,
Although I pay the price alone.
If still
more beautiful to see
The Stars and Stripes o'er men shall wave

And finer shall my country be,
To-morrow let me find my grave.
To-night life seems so fair and sweet,
Yet tyranny is stalking here,

And hate and lust and foul deceit
Hang heavy on the atmosphere.

Injustice seeks to throttle right,
And laughter's stifled to a sigh.
If
death can take so great a blight
From human lives, then let me die.

If death must be the cost of life,
And freedom's terms are human
souls,
Into the thickest of the strife
Then let me go to pay the tolls.

I would enrich my native land,
New splendor to her flag I'd give,

If where I fall shall freedom stand,
And where I die shall freedom
live.
To-morrow death with me may trade;
Let me not quibble o'er the
price;
But may I, once the bargain's made,
With courage meet the
sacrifice.
If happiness for ages long
My little term of life can buy,

God, for my country make me strong;
To-morrow let me bravely
die.
The Flag on the Farm
We've raised a flagpole on the farm
And flung Old Glory to the sky,

And it's another touch of charm
That seems to cheer the passer-by,

But more than that, no matter where
We're laboring in wood and
field,
We turn and see it in the air,
Our promise of a greater yield.

It whispers to us all day long
From dawn to dusk: "Be true, be strong;

Who falters now with plough or hoe
Gives comfort to his country's
foe."
It seems to me I've never tried
To do so much about the place,
Nor
been so slow to come inside,
But since I've got the Flag to face,

Each night when I come home to rest
I feel that I must look up there

And say: "Old Flag, I've done my best,
To-day I've tried to do my
share."
And sometimes, just to catch the breeze,
I stop my work,
and o'er the trees
Old Glory fairly shouts my way:
"You're shirking
far too much to-day!"
The help have caught the spirit, too;
The hired man takes off his cap

Before the old red, white and blue,
Then to the horses says:
"Giddap!"
And starting bravely to the field
He tells the milkmaid by
the door:

"We're going to make these acres yield
More than they've

ever done before."
She smiles to hear his gallant brag,
Then drops a
curtsey to the Flag,
And in her eyes there seems to shine
A
patriotism that is fine.
'We've raised a flagpole on the farm
And flung Old Glory to the sky,

We're far removed from war's alarm,
But courage here is running
high.
We're doing things we never dreamed
We'd ever find the time
to do;
Deeds that impossible once seemed
Each morning now we
hurry through.
The Flag now waves above our toil
And sheds its
glory on the soil,
And boy and man look up to it
As if to say: "I'll
do my bit!"
The Mother on the Sidewalk
The mother on the sidewalk as the troops are marching by Is the mother
of Old Glory that is waving in the sky.
Men have fought to keep it
splendid, men have died to keep it bright, But that flag was born of
woman and her sufferings day and night; 'Tis her sacrifice has made it,
and once more we ought to pray For the brave and loyal mother of the
boy that goes away.
There are days of grief before her, there are hours that she will weep,
There are nights of anxious waiting when her fear will banish sleep;
She has heard her country calling and has risen to the test, And has
placed upon the altar of the nation's need, her best. And no man shall
ever surfer in the turmoil of the fray The anguish of the mother of the
boy who goes away.
You may boast men's deeds of glory, you may tell their courage great,
But to die is easier service than alone to sit and wait, And I hail the
little mother, with the tear-stained face and grave Who has given the
Flag a soldier--she's the bravest of the brave. And that banner we are
proud of, with its red and blue and white Is a lasting tribute holy to all
mothers' love of right.
The Big Deeds

We are done with little thinking and we're done with little deeds, We
are done with petty conduct and we're done with narrow creeds; We
have grown to men and women, and we've noble work to do, And
to-day we are a people with a larger point of view. In a big way we
must labor, if our Flag shall always fly. In a big way some must suffer,
in a big way some must die.
There