`` Oh , I 'm not going -- do n't worry . I tell you I 'm afraid to go -- afraid . I do n't mince the matter to myself . It 's a relief to own up even to you , Rilla . I would n't confess it to anybody else -- Nan and Di would despise me . But I hate the whole thing -- the horror , the pain , the ugliness . War is n't a khaki uniform or a drill parade -- everything I 've read in old histories haunts me . I lie awake at night and see things that have happened -- see the blood and filth and misery of it all . And a bayonet charge ! If I could face the other things I could never face that . It turns me sick to think of it -- sicker even to think of giving it than receiving it -- to think of thrusting a bayonet through another man . '' Walter writhed and shuddered . `` I think of these things all the time -- and it does n't seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of them . They laugh and talk about ` potting Huns ' ! But it maddens me to see them in the khaki . And they think I 'm grumpy because I 'm not fit to go . '' Walter laughed bitterly . `` It is not a nice thing to feel yourself a coward . '' But Rilla got her arms about him and cuddled her head on his shoulder . She was so glad he did n't want to go -- for just one minute she had been horribly frightened .
And it was so nice to have Walter confiding his troubles to her -- XXXXX her , not Di .
If about at because for in of on that to