Even the half-dollars, quarters and dimes are precious.
“You don’t get that one,” they say as they pull a handful of change from their pockets. “That’s my lucky piece. I’m savin’ that there little ol’ nickel to spend on Broadway.”
French money, Belgian money, Swiss money, English money, Spanish money, Italian money, Greek money, Canadian money, Luxembourg money, Indo-Chinese money, money from Argentine Republic, and yesterday a German mark even, all come across the counter and go into the till without comment. But when any American money comes in I always feel badly over it. For, be it a crisp five dollar bill, an eagle quarter or only a buffalo nickel I know it signifies just one thing,—bankruptcy.
Bourmont, December 7.
To be a corporal in the Ninth Infantry, it is said, a man must be able to speak eight languages, one for each soldier in his squad. The same could be said with almost equal truth of our regiment. I don’t know whether it is this mixture of many nationalities that gives my family its flavour; be that as it may, Company A has more color, more character, more individuality to the square inch than I had dreamed any such group could possess. And they are so funny, so engaging in their infinite variety and their child-like naivete!
First there are Gatts and Maggioni; Gatts, lean, tall, honest-eyed, with a grin that won’t come off and a quaint streak of humour,—Gatts who looks pure Yankee, but is, if the truth were told, three-quarters German,—Gatts who hangs about my counter hour after hour; and by his side sticks little Maggioni, who told the recruiting officer that he was seventeen but whose head just tops the canteen shelf, and who looks, with his pink cheeks and his great dark eyes, like nothing in the world but an Italian cupid in the sulks. The two have struck up the oddest comradeship.
“Me an’ Gatts, we’re goin ’to stick side by side,” explains Maggioni, “an’ if I see a crowd o’ Germans pilin’ onto him, why I’ll just go right after ’em, an’ if too many of ’em come for me ter oncet, why Gatts here, he’ll just lay right into ’em.”
And Gatts nods, looking down at Maggioni with a parent’s indulgent eye.
“He thinks he’s a tough guy for sich a little feller,” he comments reflectively; “but he’s the only one in the regiment that knows it.”
“You all think I’m mighty little!” snaps the cupid. “When I joined at Syracuse everybody said to me ‘Baby, where’d you leave your cradle?’ But lemme tell you, I’ve growed since I’ve been in the army!”