Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1901-11-28
Why Tom Crowder:
Re=enliSted
BY JOHN H. RAFFERTY,.

Six months Of soldering in the Phil
ippines had taken all the edge of Tom
Crowders 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 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 ut 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
20 make, he cannot flourish on sow
belly. But when he begins to decorate
his tent wall with the photographs OF
Tillie and Sue and 1.-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 h, didn't
lure a little bit His term of enlistment
was almost at an end, and he satls-
fed himself with blotting each dull day
off the calendar, writing doggerel verse
about Title and making himself 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 he was mustered out ned
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 Il good home and
swell people, why don't some OF EN-
write to YOU sneered 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 sore
one with Tom, because nobody wrote
to him except his mother and her lei
tiers seldom reached him during Tue
final months of his campaigning IN the
interior. lie had quarreled with DIS
brother SO many times that no love
was lost between them. and his father
didn't write for the good reason lAl'
he didn't know how As for Title the
young soldier had no reason to expect
letters from her When lie i1it Ae-,e'
she was only IL, and his affair WIN
her was of the long distance, mooLlhs'
mental sort peculiar to boys ana giIIs
just out of high school II Tom hal
been perfectly fair in his introspectloh'
he must have admitted that there was
nothing very tangible in his hopes WIN
! regard to Title. lie told himseu
thousand times that she was tine Ohe
girl" and codGled himself with tne
belief that his fealty TO her was l'''c
short of heroic. and that by some nyS'
FERROUS telepathic sympathy she mus
by this time be pining away Tor ui'
return.
He wasn't lin love" when be enlist
ed but he had her picture ana A'.
mothers, and by a natural process q
longing for home he developed quite i
fierce and yeaming passion for INT
\ hundred times lie began letter y
her lut be never had The rcrYe I"
send IT, He cut her initials on trees
fences and tent poles and wrote A1
name a dozen times on every scrap 9
paper that he could fud. lia sang
spelled il and whistled 1t til h-s >.1l
was ia a iine frenzy. and be kue" y
heart The long speech Of propos.i -
he meant to whisper into her i.itle -
car tie first time he could sel "
alone in the swing or GA the h-l'''
seat Of dads spring wagon.
So when Tom got back 10 Manlia a.
regular .aalls" be was stirFti pf Z.
uurea sonable hope that there N0~,@
be nj leaSt one letter from Iiiiie -
was disappointed. but NOT dishee'
&C. - tnu nothing but three ~
sires from his mother. In which -.
was not a word OF his hearts 49,
and q volume Of Inotherly advice
the care be should take Of hiHsel4' =.
things he should eat end aS-Aa' i.
comrades he should avoid anu
prayers he should say. Her !a'es' ~
ter was full Of the ''time they
give him. when he got hel1e' -
concluded with the hint q