The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1917-11-02
SOLDIER BOYS SANG
SONGS AT TWILIGHT
Sentimental Stuff Got the
Better of Them
LETTER OF LADY LOVE
"Home Sweet Home" Was One
Of the Fav0rite Selections
Warbled
]. w, PEGLER.

France, October 11.-[By Mail IA
dark, moonless sky, stippled with PIN
points of silver light, the sound OF
restless hoofs stamping in the mule
barnard that gone, homesick feel
ing. 1t was natural that the Sammies
should rather gather round the dark
ening embers in the cook-shac to-
night and sing till they had to go to
bed.
Sentiment seemed to fall over the
camp all of a sudden. UerhapS it was
the slight tinge of autumn in the air
CT the sight of brown, stubbed, harv-
est fields where gnarled old peasant
women went up and down the rows
cleaning stray wisps of wheat
Anyway, as soon as the vesper
chow had been tucked away the fell
lows began to drift down the battalion
street, singularly silent for Sammies.
French housewives. tanned about the
face and wide about the middle, sat
in their door ways, knitting or Groom
ing to cranky, tired children.
Sad Discord of the Flute.
From the edge of a wood, a hun
dred yards up the hill, came the sad,
sad discord of a single flute. The top
sergeant said it was "that crazy An
derson guy, practicing progressive ex-
ercise number one," with the ambi-
ton of some day getting place in
the band
Shadows rushed down from the
hills and darkness turned the groups
of khaki into mere blots moving
about in the gloom. Then someone
with tenor voice began the sob
stuff while someone else accompanied
him on mouth-organ
"Ain't that CREATE" said the top
sergeant. "Takes me back to Chicago
and the summer nights on the lake,
when we'd paddle our canoes about a
mile out and sing just like that"
The song came from the little cir
Gle around the cooks fire. The cook
shack really isn't a shack at ADJUST
canvas roof, with stove pipe run
ming through it and leafy branches
spread on top to fool the German
aeroplanes. So the song was uncon-
fined by walls, but free to overwhelm
the sobbing of Anderson's flute.
"Just song at twi-ili-ight,
"W'en the lights a-are lo-ow-"
Everyone sang, some worse than
others, and a raw kid from Memphis
threw a rock at French hound be-
cause the dog threw in his own mourn
full howl to swell the volume.
Sentimental Stuff Has Call.
Sentimental stuff having the call,
the Memphis lad rose and detained
1.-The Face on the Bar-room Flo" to
the growing audience. Sitting at his
feet a boy from Iowa was reading a
letter from home, holding it so as to
catch the freight
"My girl gives me lot of good adj
vice about likker," said he. "That's a
sign she cares for me-"
There followed songs and selec-
tions, solos and choral effects. 1t was
Mother Machree" and then that one
about the train that's coming around
the bend. Goodbye, my lover, good
bye" Some highbrow guy who used
to be reporter in Tulsa, Okla, tried
to get away with a poem by a gent
named Wilde-"I never saw man
who looked so wistfully at the day
He kept on and on for many stanzas
but quit when he was drowned out by
the close harmony bawling of "Whis-
key, oh, whiskey, you amt no friend
on mine"
Inevitably "Home Sweet Home
came around on the program. 1t was
interrupted by bugle blast Sammies
moved along to their billets, the Iowa
boy tucking way his letter, having
read it four times. The mules stamp
ed and ratified their halter chains in
the stable. The sentimental stuff gave
way to the common sense crunching
of gravel under the sentry's feet