The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1918-11-15
S hospitable as all other lucky peo-

as hospitable as all other lucky peo-
pie who live in huts!
Then in history-there was King Al
fred, you remember, who baked cakes
in hut and burned them, and has
come to us as a fascinating example
OF kingly carelessness, and to balance
that we are told of a king and queen
who ate American buckwheat cakes
the other day with our own boys in
our own Eagle hut in London!
And now the hut is the soldiers
home! 1t is there that he writes his
letters, plays games, is entertained,
buys his chocolate and cigarettes, at
tends church services.
For Heavens sake, why pamper
them?" asks Snug old gentleman,
who RACES II his reading lamp isn't
right, who grumbles and growls II his
egg isn't soft, who plays golf and mo-
tors and dimes and sups as complacent-
ly as If the whole world were not torn
by war-"Why pamper them? What
do they need of chocolate or cigar
cites? / never smoked cigarette in
my life, and / hate chocolate. And
singing psalms won't help them any.
Why don't they fight it opt like men,
and let the money be used for arms
and equipment? I haven't any SYM
pathy with all this sentimental slush
about the Home following them. Let
them harden up bit"
When hear a man talk like that
know he has never smelied powder or
faced gun. 1t is the little things that
count in a soldiers life. came very
young to the knowledge of that, for
my father fought through the four
years of the Civil War, and the stories
of my childhood were, therefore, those
of war; not of its horror-my father
kept the tales of tragedy for an older
audience; he gave to me the homely
details-what the soldiers ate, what
they wore, where they slept, the songs
they sang, their jokes-the funny old
jokes that lose their point now as we
listen.
Thus | learned that in a soldiers
lexicon there are two very important
words food" and fun" / found it
very hard at first to picture my dig
nified father in his frock coat and top
hat as making flapjacks or digging a
pit in which beans were to be baked,
and which was assured tasted better
than any beans in the whole wide
world when eaten with bareback and
molasses-sweetened coffee. 1t was only
by getting out old pictures that saw
him at last thin and boyish in shah
by uniform, and looking more like
somebody's younger brother than any
body's father!
was never allowed to lose sight OF
the fact that war was a high and
solemn adventure, and use "adven
ture" here in a rather limited sense
as the search for the Grail was an ad
venture, or the Crusades. Fighting
must, knew, have the justification OF
unselfish purpose. My father held that
it was not only right, it was the res
olute and strong thing to take up arms
for the relief of the oppressed. A bat
tie for ones own freedom. or the free
dom of another was righteous cause
] remember that he came home one
night with blood on his cuffs. He had
happened upon big brute beating a
cripple. 1t was the brute's blood that
that was on my fathers cuffs. And
the cripple, because Of my father, had
gone unframed 1t was lesson,
never forgot. / remembered it indeed
when Belgium was invaded by the
Hun!
Because of my father, and the things
he told me of that other war, have
come, perhaps. more easily to an I'M
Outstanding Of the present conflict,
and the part our men play, than those
to whom war is thing new and fresh,
and who see in 1t only battlefelds and
the dead and dying.
A friend of mine said to me the
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