She's going to have young ones in a few days.How could I chase her out?""You're quite right, Buddy," said Bok."You couldn't do that.""Oh, no," said the boy."The worst of it is, what am I going to do with her when we move up within a day or two? I can't take her along to the front, and I hate to leave her here.Some one might treat her rough.""Captain," said Bok, hailing the officer, "you can attend to that, can't you, when the time comes?""I sure can, and I sure will," answered the Captain.And with a quick salute, Pinney and his porker went off across the road!
Bok was standing talking to the commandant of one of the great French army supply depots one morning.He was a man of forty; a colonel in the regular French army.An erect, sturdy-looking man with white hair and mustache, and who wore the single star of a subaltern on his sleeve, came up, saluted, delivered a message, and then asked:
"Are there any more orders, sir?"
"No," was the reply.
He brought his heels together with a click, saluted again, and went away.
The commandant turned to Bok with a peculiar smile on his face and asked:
"Do you know who that man is?"
"No," was the reply.
"That is my father," was the answer.
The father was then exactly seventy-two years old.He was a retired business man when the war broke out.After two years of the heroic struggle he decided that he couldn't keep out of it.He was too old to fight, but after long insistence he secured a commission.By one of the many curious coincidences of the war he was assigned to serve under his own son.
When under the most trying conditions, the Americans never lost their sense of fun.On the staff of a prison hospital in Germany, where a number of captured American soldiers were being treated, a German sergeant became quite friendly with the prisoners under his care.One day he told them that he had been ordered to active service on the front.He felt convinced that he would be captured by the English, and asked the Americans if they would not give him some sort of testimonial which he could show if he were taken prisoner, so that he would not be ill-treated.
The Americans were much amused at this idea, and concocted a note of introduction, written in English.The German sergeant knew no English and could not understand his testimonial, but he tucked it in his pocket, well satisfied.
In due time, he was sent to the front and was captured by "the ladies from hell," as the Germans called the Scotch kilties.He at once presented his introduction, and his captors laughed heartily when they read:
"This is L--.He is not a bad sort of chap.Don't shoot him; torture him slowly to death."One evening as Bok was strolling out after dinner a Red Cross nurse came to him, explained that she had two severely wounded boys in what remained of an old hut: that they were both from Pennsylvania, and had expressed a great desire to see him as a resident of their State.
"Neither can possibly survive the night," said the nurse.
"They know that?" asked Bok.
