“We must go in, mother. Gosh! it’s only decent. We could bring peace. We must go in,” he raged. He was too young to go across and he raged more at his youth. His mother gloried in and shivered at his rage. At last America was in, and the boy, who had trained in his university, could not fling himself fast enough into the service. The woman, as hundreds of thousands of other American women, was no slacker. There was a jingle in the papers:
“America, he is my only one,
My hope, my pride, and joy;
But if I had another
He should march beside his brother,
America, here’s my boy!”
The jingle hit straight at armies of women in those days.
No officers’ training-camp for Dick; he would go as an enlisted man with the rank and file of American men.
“But you’re officer material,” complained his mother. “Aren’t you wasting power that the country may need?”
“If I can win shoulder-bars, honey, hooray!” said Dick. “Otherwise, me for a dough-boy.”