Soldiers appeared like raindrops on the pavement because of the recruiting center just outside Chicago. Their mossy uniforms were starched and pressed, their badges neatly stitched. Elise’s father, farmer of corn and wheat and rye, often bemoaned that he’d had four daughters instead of sons. Once the draft began, and after it didn’t stop, and the cherry-faced young men who worked his fields and ate at his table didn’t return home, Mr. Jenkins never uttered those words again.
