THE ALL HE LIFE
“He was a big, broad shouldered, brawny man with a rugged manner of speech. He described himself very well when he said to me: I can think as pure white as anybody but I want to talk like a he man.'
“He had been wounded by a burst of shrapnel and was not badly hurt, although one side of his face looked as if it had been raked by the claws of a leopard. He had told me that for a day after the accident he had heard a sound in his head 'like two skeletons rassling on a tin roof.'
“Who but an American soldier in France would talk like that? Indeed I found that he was from Kansas City and had the mixed dialect of the midcountry.
“'Do you think it makes ye better or worse—this game of war?' I asked.
“'Well, sir, I'd say better,' he answered. 'Ye get things measured up right, over here. Ye learn how to use yer thinker. Nobody knows what peace and home and friends are worth 'til they're gone and ye don't know whether you're ever going to see 'em again or not It ain't a bad thing to live the all he life a while and see the family in dreams. They look so gol durnably different. I reckon it's helped me. Maybe I better tell ye a little story and you'll see what I mean. It'll be a Christmas story.
“'We were in the ruined city of Peronne that Christmas Day. My friend and I were homesick and had tramped across country from the camp of our engineering corps to send a message to our wives in Kansas City, and to blow ourselves to a good dinner with a bottle of wine and cigars if money could buy 'em. We were a little over beaned and tea!—gosh! we were soaked in it, and that French tobacco reminded me of my father's cure for the epizootic. We had been gander-dancing on a new railroad for weeks. We were shovel tired and kind o' man weary. By thunder! we hadn't seen a woman in three months.
“'You who see women every day don't realize that they're a pretty necessary part of the scenery. Oh, you don't miss 'em for a week or so, but by and by you begin to find out there's something wrong. Things don't look right. The hole in the doughnut is too big. You'd be kind o' glad to hear what somebody said at the Woman's Club, and all about Betsey Baker's new pink silk, and how shabby that one old dress of your wife's was getting to be. You'd like to see a set o' skirts come along—I guess. It would kind o' comfort you. If you didn't have pretty good self-control you'd get up and wave your hat and holler.
“'Then—children—that's another thing you miss. We don't see 'em on the battle front—ne'er a one! What a hole they make in the world when you take 'em out of it!—especially if you've got some of your own. They come to me in my dreams—the wife and babies! I'll bet ye there's more'n a thousand of 'em crowding into that big camp every night, about dream-time, and looking for theirs.
“'Oh, I wouldn't have ye get the idea that we set and sob and talk mush and look sorrowful there. If you just grabbed a look at us and went on you'd say we were no Hamlets. Gosh, no! We play cards and joke and laugh and tell stories a plenty. You wouldn't get what's down under it all unless some feller kind o' confessed and turned state's evidence. No, sir—I don't believe you would.
“'I'm just telling ye enough to make ye understand why We went out to Peronne that Christmas Day and what happened to us there. I speak French pretty glib—that's another reason why we went. My mother was a Louisiana French woman. I got it from her when I was a little chap—never forgot it—and I bossed a gang of Frenchmen for two years.
“'We found a man who ran a little grocery shop and restaurant down in one of the old cellars. He had had a fine big café up-stairs before the German army swatted the town with dynamite. He was a sad little man who lived down there in the lamplight with his wife. The Huns had carried their two daughters away with them. He had cleaned the litter out of his cellars and repaired their walls and so they had a home and something to do.
“'I asked him if he could get up a good dinner for us.
“'"Oui, Monsieur,” he answered promptly. “I can get you a fine duck and celery and preserved strawberries, and I could make a little pastry.”
“'"How much for the dinner?”
“'"Thirty francs—I can not make it less.”
“'"Make it forty and we'll call it a bargain,” I urged.
“'You should have seen the smile on his face then.
“'"Les Americans! They always talk like that—God be with them!” he said. “Trust me, Monsieur. I will make you happy.”
“'Dinner would be ready in two hours and we went out for a walk and a look at the waste of ruins. It seemed as if there were miles of them—honestly! You see they loaded every basement with dynamite and wired the whole place and then touched the button. Down it came. There isn't a roof standing. We tramped about looking for relics. It was a pretty day and warm in the sunlight.
“'Suddenly a woman, dressed in black, with a little girl about six years old—spick and span and pretty as a picture—came along. They looked like angels to us. Didn't seem so they was exactly human. We stood watching 'em.
“'I reckon I'd have give about a year o' my life for a day's use o' that kid—honestly. I'd just like to have got down on the ground and rolled and hollered and tickled and tossed her just as I used to play with my own kids. My hands itched to get hold of her. We followed along behind 'em kind o' hankerin' and a wishin'. She was a pretty little thing as ye ever looked at, with curly hair hanging down on her shoulders and shiny, silver buckled slippers and white stockin's. I just wanted to frame up some kind of excuse to speak to 'em, but I suppose they wouldn't have understood me.
“'They stopped and looked around a minute and then the woman opened an iron gate and they went into one of the old dooryards. When we came along we saw that the woman was sitting amongst the rubbish and crying.
“'"It's her home—dummed if it ain't,” I whispered.
“'I reckon 'twas natural for 'em to come back to it on Christmas Day—plumb natural to come back to where they had been happy once with all the family around. What a place! You'd think that an earthquake and a cyclone had gone into partnership for about a minute and done a smashing business. About half the back wall was standing and there hung a little corner of the attic floor and the wind had blown the dirt up there and some flowers and grass all withered by the cold had sprung up in it, and beyond that was an old baby carriage with a ragged top and a spinning-wheel.
“'The little girl didn't seem to notice her mother. She was running around on the ruins and picking up broken dishes. I reckon that kid had got used to the crying of men and women. The sight of grief didn't worry her any more—not a bit. She was flying around like a bird on the ruins.
“'We sat down behind some bushes by the iron fence just to see what happened.
“'By and by I heard the little girl call in a voice that kind o' made me swaller—honest it was as sweet as the first bird song in the spring.
“'"Mother! Mother!” she called.
“'"What is it—little one!” the mother answered.
“'"Dinner's ready.”
“Talk about silver bells! Say, mister, never again! Honest, I never heard a sound like the voice of that kid. It kind o' floored me—sure thing! Up there at the front we just hear the growling of cannon and the whinnying of horses and the swearing of men day and night. Maybe that's why the kid's voice took hold of us that way. I don't know. After I had heard it I felt as if I could walk to Kansas City. Honest Injun!
“'We peeked through the bushes and saw that the little girl had dragged a board between her and her mother and covered it with broken dishes. Then she began to chitter-chatter.
“'Here's some lovely soup and there's a fine goose and a great bowl full of the best jelly that ever was and potatoes and celery and spinach and everything that you like, mother. It's a Christmas dinner you know. Papa will sit here and Henri will sit there and we are going to have the grandest time.”
“'So the little chatter-box went on—good deal like a fine lady—and her mother said:
“'"Papa! Henri! They are not here! They will eat no more with? us.”
“'"Why?”
“'“Mort pour la patrie—both of them! my child!”
“'"No, mother, they are here. I can see them just as plain! Come, mother, they are waiting!”
“'Oh, by thunder! If I only had a mind like that I said to myself—a mind that hadn't got so kind of stiff and sore and muscle bound—a mind that was so clean and supple and that hadn't forgotten how to believe in the things I do not see. Or do ye suppose that the clear eyes of a kid can realty see things that we can't?
“'"God bless you—nay little saviour! You know how to make me happy—don't ye?” said the mother with her handkerchief at her eyes.
“Then they both sat down there and began to eat that ghostly dinner with the ghosts of the dead.
“'Gosh all hemlock! I just shut my eyes and heard a sound like a wind blowing in my head. I turned and whispered to my pal.'
“'"You stay here. I'll be back right away.”'
“Then I sloped on my tiptoes. Went to the cellar and found that man and brought him with me. I told him to invite them to dinner and that I would pay for it. I didn't care if it took the last sous marquee in my breeches.
“When we got back they were both singing The Marseillaise, that my mother taught me when I was a kid, as they sat at their Christmas dinner:=
````Amour sacré de la patrie
````Conduis soutiens nos bras vengeurs
````Liberté Liberté cherie,
````Combats avec tes défenseurs!=
“They heard us coming and stopped. Can ye beat it? Say, mister, the boches might as well try to conquer the birds of the air.
“The man knew them. They had been well off and respectable folks in Peronne before the war. Now they were refugees living on charity in a distant village.
“'We gave them a part of our dinner but I do not think they were as happy in the cellar as they had been with the ghosts. They were very glum but we—well, ye know, sir, I reckon they helped our Christmas a lot. You bet I do.
“'Ye know I had him put three extra plates at oar table—one for Mary and one for little Kate and one for my roguish boy Bill. Say, I had learned something from that kid—you bet. It isn't necessary for me to fall asleep to have 'em with me now.
“The eats! Say, Fred Harvey wouldn't be deuce high with that little Frenchman.
“'We had some dinner, don't you doubt it, my friend, and forgot that there was a war.
“'And ye know the funny part of it is this: Mary wrote me of her dream that she and the kids had dinner with me on Christmas Day.'
“I have told you this story because it gives you a day in the life of an American soldier, with its psychological background and a glimpse of the fatherless children. If you were one of the boys in khaki I would remind you that, after all, there is only one great thing in the world—man. What an extension of human sympathy and understanding is coming to you, my bright young soldier lad! As it comes it will go out in some measure to the duller fellows who share your thought and meat and perils.
“You will have a wiser brain, a nobler spirit and a stronger body. This digging and marching and sweating in the open is the best thing that can happen to you. I often thought that no wiser thing could be done for our college boys than mobilize them every summer and send them to camp in the wheat-fields for two or three months of hard work.
“What's the matter with an army of peace, with its companies, regiments and divisions, doing, under military discipline, constructive instead of destructive work—doing the things that need most to be done, getting in the harvests or building roads? It might give a part of its time each day to military training, especially to rifle practise. It would be a school of Democracy. Its best product would be spirit, its next best brawn, and last of all the work done.
“You will encounter perils in France, my brave lad, and the least of them will be those of the battle-field. It is when you go to Paris on leave that I would have you look out for yourself.
“I'm not much of a preacher. I am not so foolish as to think that all wisdom is in the Bible. To speak honestly, I am inclined to think that there are many things in the Bible which oughtn't to be there. The Kaiser seems to me to be imitating the sanctified slayers of the Old Testament. You will find chapters there which read like a report of the German General Staff after a successful drive. It is there that crazy Bill finds his warrant for disemboweling so many people and mistreating his prisoners. That kind of history should be summarily deprived of the odor of sanctity, in my humble opinion.
“But there is one sentence of Scripture that I would have you remember—my brave, fine fellows who are to fight under this flag of ours. Having lived some fifty years and been a somewhat careful observer, I would call it the most impressive sentence ever written. It is full of vital truth. Every young man ought to read it once a day and think of it as often as he is tempted. It is from the book of Job and it says:
“'His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.'
“Think it over, boys. Think of that word 'bones' which indicates how deeply it lays hold of you, and of the clause 'which shall lie down with him in the dust,' which indicates that only death can break its hold.
“Don't let the optimistic young doctors fool you. It is a serious matter. You can get along with the mud and vermin of the trenches. They will only afflict the outside of you. The main thing is to keep clean inside. Don't allow your life currents to be polluted. See that you bring bade to your home a clean body.
“You will do this, unless, when you go to Paris or to some other city, on leave, you fall for that French wine and lose your head in the process. Let it alone, I beg of you, and remember that your greatest peril is not on the battle-field.
“Do not for a moment lose faith in the issue. 'The cause of Liberty bequeathed from sire to son, though baffled oft is ever won.'
“I have seen how eagerly, how cheerfully the young men at the front give their lives for something greater than they. It has filled me with wonder.
“I have a little farm out here on the hills. It has helped me to understand the world I live in and especially these boys. How often I have seen the winds of autumn strip the grove and garden of their loveliness until nothing was left but dead stalks and bare branches. The captains and the kings had departed. I have seen them returning—the delicate green of the new leaves in spring, the grass, the violets, and here are the familiar sprouts of the poison ivy. I thought that I had tom the last of it out of the ground last summer, but here it is.
“Everything passes away but it returns, and the noxious ivy is the most persistent returner of all. I am busy fighting it every spring and summer.
“So it is with this world of men. Caesar dies, despotism is uprooted, as we thought, and we discover that they have returned and are busy growing and spreading their roots. Everything returns if you give it a chance. Herod has returned and is slaying the male children. Pilate has returned and is sitting in judgment.
“Do you tell me that Jesus Christ will return? Nay, I tell you He has already returned. He is in the camps and on the battle-fields of France and Belgium. He is in the hearts of the young men who are dying as He died to make men free.
“So, my young soldier lads of Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States, I take off my hat and bare my gray head when you march by me, for I know why you are so brave.”
It was near midnight when the country lawyer and I left his office and headed up the main street of the village toward his home. After a moment of silence we reached the public square and then he directed my eyes toward the glowing lamp of Jupiter in the sky.
“When you get to wondering at God's neglect of His duty, it's a good idea to go out and take a look at the stars riding up there in the sunlight,” he said. “I guess this little world of ours has got to take care of itself. Kind o' looks to me as if God had enough of His own work to do, especially when so many of us are loafing. I don't see how we can complain if we do have to 'tend to our own business. We've been depending a long time on prayer an' indolence an' good luck while we let the weeds grow in the garden. I rather guess we'll have to do our own hoein'. Every man to his hoe! And let's take care that the weeds don't get too far ahead of us again.
“If this planet is to be a safe and decent place to live upon, there should be an International School Commission agreed as to one main purpose—that of cultivating good will between the races which inhabit it. Of course, no power could remove all the lies from history, but I hope that the lies and also the truth of it could be so put as to rob them of the seed of bitterness, even against the Germans.”