Ikey laid him on the fire step alongside of our gun, but we could not attend to him, because we had important work to do. So he died like a soldier, without a look of reproach for our heartless treatment. Just watched our every movement until his lights burned out. After the attack, what was left of our section gathered around Jim's bloodstained body. There wasn't a dry eye in the crowd.
Next day, we wrapped him in a small Union Jack belonging to Happy, and laid him to rest, a soldier of the king.
We put a little wooden cross over his grave which read:
PRIVATE JIM MACHINE-GUN COMPANY KILLED IN ACTION APRIL 10, 1916 A DOG WITH A MAN'S HEART
Although the section has lost lots of men, Jim is never forgotten.
[signed] Arthur Guy Empey
Heel and Toe
That man—it could only have been a man—who invented the Klinger darning and mending machine struck a blow at marriage. Martha Eggers, bending over her work in the window of the Elite Hand Laundry (washing delivered same day if left before 8 A.M.) never quite evolved this thought in her mind. When one's job is that of darning six bushels of socks a day, not to speak of drifts of pajamas and shirts, there remains very little time for philosophizing.
The window of the Elite Hand Laundry was a boast. On a line strung from side to side hung snowy, creaseless examples of the ironer's art. Pale blue tissue paper, stuffed into the sleeves and front of lace and embroidery blouses cunningly enhanced their immaculate virginity. White piqué skirts, destined to be grimed by the sands of beach and tee, dangled like innocent lambs before the slaughter. Just behind this starched and glistening ambush one glimpsed the bent head and the nimble fingers of Martha Eggers, first aid to the unwed.
As she sat weaving, in and out, in and out, she was a twentieth century version of any one of the Fates, with the Klinger darner and mender substituted for distaff and spindle. There was something almost humanly intelligent in the workings of Martha's machine. Under its glittering needle she would shove a sock whose heel bore a great, jagged, gaping wound. Your home darner, equipped only with mending egg, needle, and cotton, would have pronounced it fatal. But Martha's modern methods of sock surgery always saved its life. In and out, back and forth, moved the fabric under the needle. And slowly, the wound began to heal. Tack, tack, back and forth. The operation was completed.