Dunbar’s “When Melinda Sings” he does to perfection. Once in awhile he pulls the “Hunk o’ Tin” parody on the Kipling poem.
Then they sing some more, both democratic music and old hymns, and finally they all stand up, after he has launched a two-minute patriotic talk that thrills, and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Rodey never has a set program. He sizes up each new audience with a glance and in two minutes knows about what line of entertainment he ought to give them. If it’s a crowd that likes good stories, they get it. If it is a meeting that likes a Bible talk, they get that, and the great Sunday himself hasn’t much on his pupil in that line. But he never lets a crowd get away with a solemn face. He leads them up the hill and down the hill, and finally sends them back to the blankets feeling refreshed, inspirited, and cheerful.
And when Rodey hit a camp of Negro troops—man, O man! what he did to them!
He thinks the war has been a holy war, a war of crusaders against the terrible Huns, and wants them beaten to a standstill. He insists on the knockout punch, and believes the world will be a better world for everybody after Fritz and his gang have been completely chastized.—Charles N. Wheeler, in The Chicago Tribune.
HIS OWN PERSONAL WAR
General Leonard Wood tells the story of a captain to whom was assigned a new orderly, a fresh recruit. “Your work will be to clean my boots, buttons, belt, and so forth, shave me, see to my horse, which you must groom thoroughly, and clean the equipment. After that you go to your hut, help to serve the breakfast, and after breakfast lend a hand washing up. At eight o’clock you go on parade and drill till twelve o’clock——”
“Excuse me, sir,” broke in the recruit, “is there anyone else in the army besides me?”
WHEN TOMMY LAUGHS
There are many bright lines in the soldiers’ letters home, as Punch and other papers note.