New Britain herald., 1917-10-19

port that the average Sammy, no mat ter what class or what part of the country he comes from, is more afraid of those first few hours on the train than he is of the battlefield. Wanted to Go Home. The stories of these " men. the only ones who have travelled in this way with the soldiers to the can- comments, begin where all the others leave off. Says Sammy to the Pub- lie" is all very we'll, but Says Sammy to Himself' is quite another matter. Sammy stripped of heroics and of bombast, Sammy homesick and human, is the one the trainmen see.
 Above the rattle of wheels and the shriek of the engine, an Alabama train laden with soldiers shook with a below like that of a bull that has nosed his way into a bee hive. With- out any trouble at all the " secre- tary followed the noise to its source, a two-hundred pound Sammy pos sessed of the contradictory attributes of @ double chin all around, sure- trigger hand, a hard head, a soft heart, and the self-control of child of six. Ham-like hands over his dis
 
 top of his, voice:
 1T want to go home! I want to go home!"
 Down by the mass of shaken avoir- dupois the " man sat, and soothed him gradually, till he learned that the man came from mountain settle ment where he had left a wife and three children. Never in his life had he been out of his own county be- fore. War? Dang 1t, he want afraid of thatl He'd be "darn glad to bust the Kaiser" in fact. Only-he want ed to go ho-me.
 Lots of other men in the car want ed to go home, too, it appeared from the murderous glances they cast at the fat mountaineer, who dared to rub it in'' like this. So the " man sent them home for a few minutes by handing around post cards, even stamps to the ones who hadn't any money, and urging them to write home.
 "Go to it, fellow," he said. "Send your first messages to the home-fo1ks. They'll be looking for word from you, you know"
 You might have thought the sol diers had been gone from home six months instead of a few hours. They didn't exactly ask Have you still got the same old cat ?" like the boy in Riley's story, but they did indicate by the general tenor of their messages home that it seemed to them long, long time since they had taken that morning train. They said, too, that they were we'll, and hoped the folks at home were the same, that they were having some ride and meant to put up some fight and sent lots of love.
 After that the secretary passed around checker boards,-a great game, checkers! If you don't want all your kings jumped off the board, you must put your whole mind on your play, to the exclusion of feeling homesick. What with the unexpected moves forced upon them by the train, and the comradeship of the game, the men began to feel better.
 The " man won their hearts by passing around hot coffee for them to drink with the lunch the govern ment had provided. They began tell ing him how they felt about things.
 "War? Hell! It ain't war I mind, it's goin' away and leavin' the kids and my woman to look out for them selves!" said one.
 "If we could play the game on our home field, with out own bunch around to root for us, 1t wouldn't be half bad," summed up young col lege fellow.
 On another train one of the men appeared to have been fighting his first battle already. He was holding