But it seems saner and more reasonable to expect, the need for 
superhuman effort and heroic strain being over, that the normal life 
will assert its supremacy. The strength of association and the power 
of habit will pull the human being back to everyday life with but a 
short period of restlessness and readjustment. Small daily needs of 
home or neighborhood will call, with insistent voice, the man who has 
been deafened by shells; peace and monotony in the daily round will 
be immense relief from battle, murder, and sudden death; and the 
fight to preserve Ufe wiU be waged with fresh zeal by the thousands 
who have stood ready to offer the supreme sacrifice of Hfe, Hberty, 
and the piursuit of happiness. 
Between this desirable future and the difficult present hes, for 
many of our soldiers and sailors, a sad but inevitable stage. We shall 
have among us in ever increasing numbers men who have become as 
httle children, helpless and unable to plan the next step. They have 
given enthusiasm and energy, their careers perhaps, and their futures 
to a great cause; but for the time being they are not heroes nor are 
they in the familiar surrounding whence they came. They are suffer- 
ing, lonely, apprehensive, discouraged, wounded, possibly maimed. 
What shaU we give them? The most skillful medical and surgical 
treatment in the world? That at least. The care of tender and 
devoted women? Only too gladly. Safe and soothing bandages, clean 
clothing, soft pillows? Many thousands of deft fingers answer that 
question every hour of every day across this wide land. 
What more then can we offer these men as a reminder of the every- 
day life of home, a diversion from present pain, an assurance that there 
will be beauty in the work-a-day Hfe of times of peace? 
There is a simple panacea that holds inexpHcable relief and power 
to sooth that can lift thoughts back to hours of pleasure and arouse 
poignant memories. Not a man living but has been transported to 
fields and gardens of childhood by the sight and scent of a flower, and 
resting there has felt again the blessed safety of the surrounding walls 
of home. 
"A boy who ran, a boy who dreamed, 
In April sun and rain ; 
Who knew all good was happiness 
And only evil pain." 
A secretary of the Red Cross, asked recently whether he considered 
flowers helpful to the recovery of a sick soldier, answered briefly, 
"To every man a flower is always home." 
Doctors in charge of these woimded boys say, " Flowers are more 
valuable than tonic, especially when homesickness is added to all the 
