How the cadets sang, and how the girls applauded! Their schoolmates in the audience, also, ably assisted in the applause. Before the last number the commandant announced that another had been added to the program, “by Lieutenant Maxwell, with the Glee Club.”
The last number printed was a rollicking sailor song, sung with much enjoyment apparently, while the audience felt like keeping time. Then, in great quiet, Lieutenant Maxwell stepped forward and began the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”:
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”
Could it be the jolly, joking young lieutenant that all the girls enjoyed so much? The fine young face was sober, and looked off into the night through the great windows. Perhaps he saw a little white cross in France. But he smiled as he sang the words Patty had written on the board that morning:
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!”
CHAPTER XVII
EXCITING DAYS
The young people of America had few illusions when war was declared in the spring of 1917. The war in Europe, with its hideous beginning and terrible progress, was more or less familiar in detail. It was no unknown adventure that our soldiers faced. Photographs or pen pictures of the trenches and their horrors had been public since that August of 1914. Ah, the gallant young Americans of 1917 and 1918! With smiles and jests, or with faces of deadly earnestness, our boys sang and marched, or rode toward the thing that had to be done. For a cause, and with a purpose, the youth of that generation offered themselves. We have had some sickening revelations since the war, but none that cast a shadow on the young generation that fought our battles then.
“Lord God of hosts, be with us yet—
Lest we forget—lest we forget!”