So when the General asked us, as I suppose he has asked previous regiments, to vote in favor of universal training, every man of us shouted Ay!
I have asked some of the squad if they mean to come again next year, in case the universal training movement does not put the training camps out of business. The answer is Yes, if they can get away again. Knudsen means to be in the cavalry; he would have gone with them this year if the regulations had not required first a period with the infantry. David I have not asked yet; but Corder will come back in spite of his years. “But I must go with the quartermaster’s department,” he said; and when I asked why: “It’s plain enough that if I can’t keep up in a charge I ought to go where I can be of real use. Now nothing is more important than the Q. M. department, and trained men are needed there as well as anywhere else. So that’s my job in the next camp.” It’s plain he’d rather march in the ranks, but he will change rather than leave the preparedness movement to get along without him.
During the afternoon there had been piled truckload after truckload of cordwood at the end of the company streets. As the conference broke up someone lighted the heap, and soon the flames, before the wind, were leaping forty feet in the air. I took your latest letter from my pocket and could clearly read it, though at a hundred and fifty yards’ distance. With shouts the crowd hastened to the fire, and company after company, each in a long line of men cheering for their officers, took its turn in a snake-dance around the blaze. As the bonfire dwindled to an immense heap of glowing coals, a deep semi-circle gathered, sitting above it on the hill, sang the songs of the hike, and called for solos from favorite singers. Chums walked up and down near the fire, or in the further darkness lay in front of tents and talked plans. Little groups gathered here or there, then restlessly broke up and shifted as men sought acquaintances for a last word that might be impossible tomorrow. In this shifting kaleidoscope of men I was glad to find Hale, cured of his bronchitis, and with a tale of how at the hospital they locked up the men’s clothes, as the only way of preventing them from escaping too soon and rejoining the hike. The camp has been one last buzz of personal talks, excited, pensive, or regretful.
But all is quieting now, and I am sleepy. Love, much love, from
Dick.
From Private Samuel Pickle to His Brother
[Without date, but evidently of the same evening.]
Dear Old Man:—