“C’est des grands gosses!” Truly, as Madame Chaput says, they’re nothing after all but so many big little boys.
After the stuff was distributed the Secretary and I invited the boys to partake of hot chocolate and sandwiches. But to our disappointment they only took a languid interest in the treat. Instead of the five and six cups apiece which many often swallow, not one of them consumed more than a cup and three-quarters. Too late we realized; they had already gorged themselves on the contents of their Christmas boxes from home.
Reports coming in from the village stated that one American Christmas custom had made a strong appeal to the feminine portion at least of the population. Quantities of mistletoe grow hereabouts. The French, although averring that it brings good-luck, consider it a pest and let it go at that. It took the American doughboys to enlighten the Mademoiselles as to its Anglo-Saxon significance. It would be curious, I have been thinking, if the adoption of this ancient privilege should prove one of the lasting evidences of the American troops in France!
As I left the canteen I learned that the boy who had been so sick at the hospital was dead.
Bourmont, December 26.
Last night was a wild night in the barracks. This morning the hut was full of echoes of it. Company A indeed wore a jaded look. They had had very little sleep it was explained. And it was all on account of the Christmas hummers.
“I ain’t got nothin’ against you people, but I shore don’t think you gave A Company a square deal,” remarked my friend the Tall Kentuckian as he lit his cigarette at the counter.
“Why, didn’t you like the present that Santa Claus brought you?” I teased.
“Huh! I would shore have singed the ol’ gentleman’s whiskers for him last night if I could have caught him!” He went on to explain; “We’d just get settled down good to sleep when some guy or other would start up a-squawkin’ on one of them things. An’ Sergeant ——, well he’d had just enough to make him fightin’ mad, an’ he shore would rare around that there barracks tryin’ to find them fellers. Why, half the corporals in the outfit was marchin’ up and down the place most all the night long, shyin’ hob-nailed shoes in what they guessed was the direction of them noises.”
I began to discern what a night of terror it had been.