16 
House & Garden 
WILL YOU HELP 
O UT of every vortex life presents is raised up some one thing that is 
decent and abiding. 
Out of the distraction of casual and careless living comes the strong 
desire for a home in which to shelter a new generation and to shield us 
from the world. 
Out of the maelstrom of many men, says the woman of the world, 
comes at last the one man whom to love and be with means life and all 
that the years can hold. 
Out of the miasmic welter of commercial chicanery and falsehood 
rises a clean, abiding business ideal—a man s character becomes his 
bond and decent, human relationship is extended to the lowliest worker 
in the greatest organization. _ . 
Out of the thunder and chaos and agony, out of the terrible straining 
and ruthless waste and bloody sweat of battle come, like flashes of light 
across a darkened storm-swept sky, the valiant deeds of men to whom 
death was the least of the sacrifices they could make for an honorable 
and just cause. 
Out of the hell of this war, out from the titanic waste of life, out of 
the looting, the raping, the murder, the drunken lust for innocent blood, 
out from the reeking pit of selfish national desires, out from the black 
night of broken promises and the annihilation of things beautiful and 
true and just comes a vision of great mercy, of abiding tenderness, of 
eternal hope. Shining through the night, with mystic glow, is the vision 
of the Red Cross. 
O N several occasions during the past year the Government has ap¬ 
pealed to us for money. In three Liberty Loan drives it has asked 
us to lend our money. It now comes to us with an appeal for the Red 
Cross. We are not asked to lend, but to give. It is not an appeal to 
the brains of America, it is an appeal to the heart. No need figuring 
on interest, no need comparing the benefits of this investment with that. 
The interest which will accrue to us cannot be calculated in figures and 
the benefits derived cannot be laid away in a bank. There is no bank 
big enough to hold them; there are no figures which can represent the 
activity of the money you give to the Red Cross. 
We loaned our money in order to get the American boys out of the 
trenches and over the top. It was necessary. No one questions the 
righteousness of the cause that sends them over there. But many will 
KEEP IT THERE? 
be coming back—dragging back and carried back—and the only way 
you can help them is to give, give, give. 
W E Americans are people of strong sentiments. We have a special 
day set aside for the glorification of mothers. We believe in men 
and women being true to each other. We talk about the sanctity of the 
home. We enact legislation that prohibits child labor, so that the chil¬ 
dren of the country can have a fair start in life. We are not a people 
who believe in a Kulture which functions from the eyebrows up; we 
live from the heart out. The Red Cross of America is one of the finest 
manifestations of our national sentiment. In no other country are its 
activities so extensive, so ready and so quick to aid the weak, the 
wounded and the helpless. It is one of the decent, abiding things which 
have been raised up out of the vortex of American life. We should take 
it as much for granted as a part of our national life as we take the 
decency of the home, the fidelity of home relations and the glorification 
of those to whom we owe existence. 
In all efforts to raise huge sums of money it is necessary, in order to 
catch and hold the attention and support of the masses, to speak in 
terms of the immediate need. So it will be in the Red Cross Drive 
which will start about the time this magazine reaches your hands. The 
necessity for your gifts will be pictured in terms of what is going on 
over there in Picardy and Flanders. Thinking people, and such are 
the readers of House & Garden, will be able to see beyond this imme¬ 
diate appeal. You will see the vision of the Red Cross as it rises out 
of the vortex of our troubled life. You will recognize in it a great 
agency for the eventual regeneration of the world, as every movement for 
national and universal benefit must of necessity be. And you will give, 
and give to the uttermost, because were we Americans to fail in our 
support of such a movement we would be failing in support of every 
other thing decent and abiding which has been entrusted to us. Every 
real thing in life exacts from us the same measure of belief and confi¬ 
dence—the home, children, churches, charities. They are part of our life, 
and life is robbed of one of its richest elements when we fail in our 
trusteeship of even the least of them. 
T HE vision of the Red Cross has been raised up for the eyes of the 
world to behold. Will you help keep it there? 
BY THE WOOD 
How still the day is, and the air how bright! 
A thrush sings and is silent in the wood; 
The hill side sleeps dizzy with heat and light; 
A rhythmic murmur fills the quietude; 
A woodpecker prolongs his leisure flight, 
Rising and falling on the solitude. 
But there are those who far from yon wood lie, 
Buried within the trench where all were found. 
A weight of mould oppresses every eye, 
Within that cabin close their limbs are bound, 
And there they rot amid the long profound, 
Disastrous silence of grey earth and sky. . . . 
O youths to come shall drink air warm and bright, 
Shall hear the bird cry in the sunny wood, 
All my Young England fell to-day in fight; 
That bird, that wood, was ransomed by our blood! 
I pray you when the drum rolls let your mood 
Be worthy of our deaths and your delight. 
Robert Nichols. 
From “Ardors and Endurances’’ 
Courtesy of Frederick A. Stokes Co. 
