Probably that lob-e-dob crew sang that song two hundred times that night. It was adapted from a new Naval Academy song. It has a merry tune and the jingle and the swing of it was infectious. The crew was highrolling only in a naval sense, the rolling wave sense, and in five minutes after they first sang the song to their hosts the hosts were joining in with them. It meant merry Christmas to everybody. Certainly this fleet had one.
For two days boating parties had gone to the heavily wooded shores of this beautiful island and had brought in greens for Christmas. They were mostly palms and bamboo, with trailing vines in profusion. When darkness came on Christmas eve the work of decoration began. Late into the night some of the men toiled. When daylight came every ship was dressed in greens. From truck to water line, on signal yards, rigging, turrets, gangways, there were branches of trees and festoons of vines. Inside the ships the wardrooms and cabins were elaborately decorated. Every wardroom had its Christmas tree and around it were grouped gifts for all. No one was overlooked. Christmas boxes, brought from home with orders not to be unsealed until Christmas Day, were broken open in every part of the ship.
Then came a day of visiting, of sports—rowing in the morning, athletics aboard ship in the afternoon and boxing in the evening—of the big reception on the Minnesota and of the merriest kind of dinner parties with the distribution of Santa Claus gifts in the evening. The gifts were mostly trinkets, but they had hits and grinds in them, and the presentation elicited shouts of laughter. Although the matter of rank was not ignored, apparently the high and low officers, from Admiral and Captain down to midshipman, were seated on the good fellowship basis and as equals. The Fourth Ward at the foot of the table went out of business for one night. The middies and ensigns could burst into song when they chose, and if any one forgot to say sir no one thought it strange. Here on the Louisiana ten minutes after we sat down to dinner came an instance of the feeling that makes the whole world kin on Christmas. The youngsters had been singing the Louisiana song, the chorus of which runs thus:
Lou, Lou, I love you;
I love you, that's true;
Don't sigh, don't cry,
I'll see you in the morning;
Dream, dream, dream of me
And I'll dream of you,
My Louisiana, Louisiana Lou.
Capt. Wainwright had been toying with a tin whistle which he had pulled from a bonbon. Stealthily he put it to his lips and blew it loud, and then that eye of his, which has the piercing power of a 12-inch shell, grew bright with the light of geniality and kindness that lie deep set and yet overflowing behind it, and he was a youngster, too. The Fourth Ward men might sing "Louisiana Lou," but he was willing to show that he could blow a tin whistle when the occasion demanded it.
One might fill columns with the songs that were sung. There is room for the chorus of just one more. The game is for about one-half of the company to sing the chorus and just before the finish the others shout an interrogatory of astonishment at the top of their voices. The chorus runs:
Dreamin', dreamin', dreamin' of dat happy lan,'
Where rivers ob beer aboun',
Where big gin rickeys fill de air
And highballs roll on de groun'.