Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1901-10-10
Why Tom Crowder
Re=enlisted
BY JOHN H. RAFFERTY,.

..-.-.: -. -. 49,: {. 80. -. -.
Six months Of soldering in the Phil
ippines had taken all the edge off Tom
Crowder's military ardor. In a year
the sight of khaki uniform hurt his
eyes. and he began to realize that in all
the world no village was so fair to look
upon rs Sugar Greek, Ills, the home
town where Crowder & Sons kept store
and where the event of each droning
day was "traintime." When two years
had almost passed, he began to dream
of swinging under the elms in the old
front yard at home and wondered as he
nibbled at the everlasting hard tack how
many pitted cherry pies he could eat at
one sitting in the dining room at home
When a young soldiers mind begins
to dwell on the pies that mother used
to make. he cannot flourish on SOW
belly But when he begins to decorate
his tent wall with the photographs OF
Title and Sue and THE folks he's fit
for nothing but furloughs and sick
leave. ana if there's anything of the
quitter about him he's in imminent dam
ger of forgetting to answer roll call
some dark evening when the music of
the sen beyond the jungle lures him
with false songs of home. Tom heard
the siren voice all right, but he didn't
lure a little bit. His term of enlistment
was almost at an end. and he salts
fled himself with blotting each dull day
off the calendar, writing doggerel verse
about Title and making himself a nui-
sance generally TO his bunkie.
He used to swear roundly that he
meant to hike back to Sugar Creek
as fast as ship and train could carry
him. and hoped by all that was holy
that once lie was mustered out he'd
never see a soldier again. lie got TO
he the worst .Gnocker" in the COM
pany and he wrote so many letters
that his comrades began to ask him
why lie didn't write a few to himself.
If you got such a good home and
swell people, why don't some of 'em
write TO youE' snecred his tent mate
one night You can't be very strong
with Tillie, or she'd write you at least
once year.
Now the latter question was a sore
one with Tom, because nobody wrote
To him except his mother. and her let
tiers seldom reached him during the
final months Of his campaigning in the
interior lie had quarreied with his
brother so many times that no love
was lost between them. and his father
didn't write for the good reason that
lie didn't know how As for Title, the
Young soldier had no reason to expect
letters from her When be left home.
she was only Is, and his affair with
her was Of the long distance incoming,
mental sort peculiar to boys and girls
just cut of high school II Tom had
been perfectly fair in his introspection.
he must have admitted that there was
nothing very tangible in his hopes with
regard to Tillie. He told himself Il
thousand times that she was the one
girl, and coddled himself with the
/ belief that his fealty To her was little
short Of heroic. ana that by some mys-
terious te!epathic sympathy She must
10y this time he pining away for his
return
He wasn't lin love" when he enlist
cd. but he had her picture and his
mothers. and by a natural process of
longing fer home he developed quite a
fierce ANA teaming passion for Title
\ hundred times he began letter 10
Ter. but be never had the nerve TO
send IT, He our her initials ON trees.
fences and tent poles and wrote her
name a dozen times "a every scrap of
paper that he could find He sang IT,
spelled it ana whistled il till bis soul
was in a tine frenzy, ana lie knew by
heart the long speech of proposal that
he meant 10 whisper into her lytle piuL
ear Tile first time he could get her
alone in the swing or on III. narrow
scat of dads spring wagon.
50 when Tom got hack 10 Manila and
regular mails" he was stirred by an
+ unreasonable hope that there would
rs az least one letter from Tillie He
was disappointed. but not dishearten-
80! 10 find nothing but three old mis-
>Iyes from his mother III which there
was not a word of his hear : delight
ana a volume Of mothc-ly advice about
the care he should take 81 himself. the
things he should eat aud drink. the
comrades he should avoid and the
prayers he should say Her latest let
tev was full of the thine TREY would
give him" when lie got home. and IL
concluded with the hint OF a great
surprise that was in store for him.
or course that put new zeSt into his