“What are the boys doing now?” she asked.
“Why, those are the setting-up exercises,” explained an obliging sergeant.
“Humph,” remarked auntie. “Looks to me more like settin’ down exercises.”
There is a man in Bozeman, Mont., who will probably go through life bewailing the injustice of the draft board that certified him for service, despite the fact that he presented a letter written by his wife to prove that he had a dependent family. Here is the letter:
“Dear United States Army: My husband ast me to write a reckomend that he supports his famly. He can not read so dont tell him. Jus take him. He ain’t no good to me. He aint done nothing but play a fiddle and drink lemmen essense since I married him, eight years ago, and I got to feed seven kids of his. Maybe you can get him to carry a gun. He’s good on squirrels and eatin’. Take him and welcum. I need the grub and his bed for the kids. Don’t tell him this but take him.”
“Now, Lieutenant Tompkins,” said the general, “you have the battalion in quarter column, facing south—how would you get it into line, in the quickest possible way, facing northeast?”
“Well, sir,” said the lieutenant, after a moment’s fruitless consideration, “do you know, that’s what I’ve often wondered.”
I just asked a policeman the quickest way to the hospital. He told me to go down to Jefferson street and yell hurrah for the czar. John D. Rockefeller wants to go to the front, but I don’t think he’ll do much for the country. When the officer says advance he’ll raise the price of gasoline.
You know all that peace talk is over. The peace party crawled into a hole and pulled the hole in after them—they’re afraid of the draft.
Some men are born soldiers, others develop into fighters after they marry. I’ve been in four battles.
The very first night I was married my wife broke this news to me. “You know, dear, I can’t dress myself,” so I got her a French maid; and, “I can’t drive my own car,” so I got her a chauffeur. Then she said: “You know I walk in my sleep,” so I had to get her a night watchman.
Uncle Sam is preparing all right in a hundred different ways we know nothing about. A man who comes up to you on the street may be an officer. If you get a drink in Kansas City, well, that’s secret service.