New-York tribune., 1918-05-01
Shoes and Ships
And Sealing Wax

It's great to live in times of strife.
It's fine to feel ones humble life is
thrilled each day by stirring deeds
that will live on while mankind reads.
It's grand to feel that even we play
our small part in History.
But when the guns shall speak their
last and all the Kaiser's dreams are
past; when far-fung battle lines are
mute and all our hopes have borne
their fruit, we'd like, if Providence
DEGREES, to slip away and take our
ease far from the newsboys' raucous
yell in some old town where home
folks dwell.
There, freed from tales of conflicts
won, we'd like to loaf till life is done,
lulled by the song of bees that flock
about the bending hollyhock in gar
dens far from trodden ways and read
Jane Austen all our days.
When Lucia, of Harlem's Little
Italy, gave up her job and began to
appear in her Saturday night best
every day, members Of the Union Set
tlement feared the worst. But Lucia
is as good as she is beautiful in her
dreamy Italian fashion. She is just
good business woman, that's all. She
is engaged to no less than twenty men
in the service, and each, under the i'm
preston that he is the only one, is
allotting her part Of his pay.
1t took place in Base Hospital No.
(the Mount Sinai Unit, somewhere
in France.
Tom, one of the sergeants who
fought in the South African War, is
a native of Ireland, resident of New
YolN and keeps the other boys from
becoming too much welded to routine.
A few weeks ago he walked up to
fellow sergeant in the unit, according
to the latest news from overseas, and
asked. confdentially:
"Don, you know more about history
than I do, don't you?" Don admitted
that he did.
"Well, tell me-" said Tom, when
the French came over to help US in '76,
did we make them get up so early in
the morning."
At times the air rifle grew pretty
heavy and fairly begged to be thrown
away. but twelve-year-old Harold
too, seemed to grow more difficult the
further You went along it. You had
to imagine that you were making a
forced march through the night to
hand the Germans walloping to get
along at all. Sometimes, it was only
the thought Of Frank, down in Camp
Upton, that kept you from sitting down
and resting your aching feet.
! Down one of the streets of Freeport
early yesterday morning trudged q
small figure. A policeman looked at
him in amazement. The air gun wab-
blcd uncertainty on the dusty shoulder
and the sturdy legs wabbled still more
Chow far is it to Camp Upton, mis-
ter" Harold Hughes asked.
Bout fifty miles,"
The early rising sun and the police
man were the only witnesses to the
distressing spectacle of the army pro-
ceeding by forced marches against
the Hun breaking down and weeping
bitterly, and then falling asleep in the
midst of its tears.
1t is twenty-six miles from Freepori
to 973 st. Marks Avenue, Brooklyn, and
it was not until Tuesday afternoon
that Harold set out for Upton to see
his brother Frank. And the tragic par!
Of it is that Frank is no longer in
Upton. but in France.
The super-poet who is to rhyme Haig,
Foch and Pershing, all in one verse,
still remains undiscovered, though re-
ports from "H. w. D." in Newark say
that the generalissimo's name rhymes
with "Boche."