Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1901-10-19
Why Tom Crowder
Pe=enliSted
By JOHN H. RAFFERTY,.

.:-. - ~. y. ~. 81. ...-. ~.
Six months Of soldering in the Phil
ippincs had taken all the edge off Tom
Crowdcr's military ardor. In 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 as Sugar Creek, Ills, the home
town where Crowdrr & Sons kept store
and where the event of each droninS
day was "traintimc." When two years
had almost passed, he began to dream
Of swinging under the clms in the old
front yard at home and wondered as he
nibblcd 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
Tillic and Sue and "the folks he's fit
for nothing but furl0ughs and sick
leave, and 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 sea beyond the jungle lures him
with false songs of home. Tom heard
the siren voice all right, but he didn't
lure little bit. His term of enlistment
was almost at an end. and he salts
fed himself with hlottilG each dull day
off the calendar, writing doggercl verse
about Tillie and making himself a nui-
sancc generally to his bunkic.
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 he was mustered out he'd
never see soldier again. He got to
be the worst "knoCkcr' in the com
that his comrades began to ask him
why he didn't write IA few to himself.
"lf you got such a good home and
swell people, why don't some of 'cm
write to yOu?" snccrcd his tent mate
one night. You can't be very strong
with Tillip or she'd write you ut least
once a year"
Now the latter question was sore
one with Tom, because nobody wrote
to him except his mother, and her let
tcrs seldom reached him during the
final months of his campaigning in the
interior. He had quarrelcd with his
brother so many times that no love
was lost between them, and his father
didn't write for the good reason that
he didn't know how. AS for Tillie, the
young soldier had no reason to expect
letters from her. When he left home,
she was only III, and his affair" with
her was of the long distance, incoming,
mental sort peculiar to boys and girls
just out of high school. If 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 coddlcd himself with the
belief that his fcalty to her was little
short of heroic and that by some myS-
tcriOuS tclcpathic sympathy she must
by this time be pining away for his
return.
He wasn't ''in love" when he enlist
ed, but he had her picture and his
motlnr'S AMI 10y n natural process OF
longing for home he developed quite a
fierce and ycarninG passion for Tillie.
\ hundred times he began Il letter to
her, but he never had the nerve TO
send it. He cut her initials on trees,
fences and tent poles and wrote her
name a dozen times on every scrap OF
paper that he could find. He sang 1t,
spelled it and whiStled 1t till his soul
was in a fine frenzy. and he knew by
heart the long speech of proposal that
he meant to whisper into her little pink
ear the first time he could get her
alone in the swing or on the narrow
seat of dads spring wagon.
SO when Tom got back to Manila and
Irregular mails" he was stirred by an
unreasonable hope that there would
be at least one letter from Tillio. lie
was disappointed, but not diShcartcn-
cd, Il find nothing but three old mis-
sives from his mother, in which there
was not a word of his hearts delight
and volume of mOtherly advice about
the care he should take of himself, the
things he should eat and drink, the
comrades he should avoid and the
prayers he should say. Her latest let
ter was full of the time they would
give him when he got home. and 1t
concluded with the hint of a great
surprise that was in store for him.
or course that put new zest into his