Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Whistling Mother Hoofy said he'd got to enlist, in spite of his mother. He knew it was his duty, but he'd rather be shot than go home and go through the farewells. He knew his mother would be sick in bed about it, and she'd cling round his neck and cry on his shoulder, and he'd have to loosen her arms and go off leaving her feeling like that. And his father would look grave and tell him not to mind, r'at his mother wasn't well, and that she couldn't help it - and Hoofy really didn't think she could, being made that way. Just the same, he dreaded going home to say good-bye dreaded it so much he felt like flunking it and wiring he couldn't come. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.