The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-11-03
SENTIMENTAL,
NOT HOME-SICk
Sad Notes of Flute FIoated Over
Battlefield Where Sam
mics Are In
Training.
IBy J. w. Pegler, United Press Staff
Correspondent

| [By j. w. Pegler, United Press Staff
| Correspondents
| AMERICAN FIELD HEADQUAR-
TIERS, France, Oct. II. (By mail.)-
A dark, moonless sky, stippled with
ipinpoints of silver light, the sound OF
restless hoofs stamping in the mule
barn-and that gone, homesick feel
| ing. 1t was natural that the sammies
should gather round the darkening
embers in the cook-shack tonight and
sing till they had to go to bed.
| Sentiment seemed to fall over the
camp all of a sudden. Perhaps 1t
was the slight tinge of autumn in the
air or the sight of brown. stubbled.
harvest fields where gnarled old peas
ant woment went up and down the
rows cleaning stray wisps of wheat.
Anyway, as soon as the ves2er
chow had been tucked away the fell
lows began to drift down the battal-
ion street, singularly silent for sam
mics. French housewives, tanned
about the face and wide about the
middle, sat in their door ways,
knitting or grooming to cranky, tired
children.
| From the edge of wood, hun
dred yards up the hill, came the sad.
sad discord of single flute. The top
sergeant said it was that crazy An
| derson guy practising progressive
exercise number one" with the am
bition of some day getting a place III
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 a tenor voice began the sob
stuff while someone else accompan-
led him on mouth organ.
"Ain't that great?" said the top
sergeant Takes me back to Chi
cago and the summer nights on the
lake, when we'd paddle our canoes
about 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 shack at all
just a canvas roof, with a stove-pipe
run 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 a song at twi-iIi-ight,
"W'en the lights a-are lo-ow-"
! Everyone sang, some worse than
others, and a raw kid from Memphis
threw rock at a French hound be-
cause the dog threw in his own
! mournful howl to swell the volume.
| Sentfm entail stuff having the call,
| the Memphis lad rose and acclaimed
"The Face on the Bar-room Flo" to
the growing audience. Sitting at his
| feet boy from Iowa was reading
! letter from home. holding it so as to
icatch the fire light.
my girl gives me lot of good
advice about lik-ker," said he. That's
sign she cares for me-"
There followed songs and selec.
| tions, solos and choral effects. II
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 a reporter in
Tulsa, Okla, tried to get away with
poem by gent namel Wilde-u
never saw a man who looked so visit
fully at the day" He kept on and
on for many stanzas but quit when he
found he was drowned out by the
close harmony bawlin@ of "Whiskey
OH whiskey, you amt no friend OF
mine"
inevitably 'Home Sweet Home"
came around on the program 1t was
interrupted by bugIe blast. Sam
mics moved along to their billets,
the Iowa boy tucking away his let.
ter. having read it four times. The
mules stamped and ratified their
halter-chains in the stable. The sent.
mental stuff gave way to the com
nonsense crunching Of gravel under
the sentry's feet.
It is less than score Of years
Iri, he first hnn vinr -tt ma In.