St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1901-09-11
Why Tom CrOwder Re.enIisted.

+be world no village was so fair to look
mon as Sugar Creek, 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 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
Tillie and Sue and "the folks" he's fit
for nothing but furloughs and sick
leave, and if there's anything of the
gutter about him he's in imminent dan
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 blotting each dull day
off the calendar, writing doggerel verse
about Tillie and making himself a nui-
sance generally to his bunkie.
He used to swear roundly that he
meant to "hike back" to Sugar Greek
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 a soldier again. He got to
be the worst ''knocker" in the COM
pany, and he wrote so many letters
that his comrades began to ask him
why he didn't write few to himself.
IF you got such a good home and
swell people, why don't some of 'em
write to your" sneered his tent mate
one night. "You can't be very strong
with Tillie, or she'd write you at least
once a 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. He had quarreled 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
Io|torc hn 1aff
she was only 16, 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 Title. He told himself a
thousand times that she was ''the one
girl" and coddled himself with the
belief that his fealty to her was little
short of heroic, and that by some mys-
FERROUS telepathic sympathy she must
by this time be pining away for his
return.
He wasn't sin love" when he enlist
ed, but he had her picture and his
mothers, and by a natural process of
longing for home he developed quite a
fierce and yearning passion for Tillie.
A hundred times he began a letter to
her, but he never had the nerve to
send 1t. 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 it till his soul
was in 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
regular mails" he was stirred by an
unreasonable hope that there would
be at least one letter from Tillie. He
was disappointed, but not dishearten-
ed, to find nothing but three old mis-
sives from his mother, in which there
was not word of his hearts delight
and a 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 great
surprise" that was in store for him.
OF course that put new Zest into his
"honing for home" and his hatred for
the army rose in proportion.
The whole town was at the station
when Tom swung off the train steps at
Sugar Greek. The Silver Cornet band,
with old Bill Tomlinson, shake and ali,
at its head, was standing on the plat
form playing "See the Conquering
Hero Comes" Great flags waved above
the depot, and yards Of bunting stretch
ed clear across the street from Crow
der's grocery store to the town hail.
Tom almost fell into the arms Of his
mother. Even his brother Jim seemed
to have forgotten all differences and
Rugged him. But, best of ALL there
was Tillie, quite a woman now, pref
tier than ever, blushing furiously and
holding his hand as she had never held
1t before and holding up her radiant
face to be kissed as often as he liked.
The small boys yelled "Hooray for Tom
Crowderg' old man Crowder shed tears
re ~