The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1919-02-21

MY DlOOu began TO curule.
Curly Wallace, placing his hand on
the speakers knee, softly said:
"Righto, mate, we know you can
see far beyond us, but tell us Of Aunt
ed Jerry and the 'pOme e wrote the
day before e clicked 1t at the lone
tree"
Jerry's brother nodded in q compre-
hending way, and reaching into the
pocket Of his tunic drew out a creased
and muddy piece IF paper, which he
opened out upon his knee, and then, in
an unnatural, sinssOng voice, which
sent shivers through US, recited the
following poem:
Between the lines, in No Mans Land,
With foliage gone, and trunk that's
torn,
A lonely sentry takes his stand,
Silently watching from morn to morn.
On starlit nights, when moon is bright,
And spreads It's rays of ghostlike
beams;
Against the sky, that tree OF blight
A CHASTITY ~hangman's gihbet seems.
When night is black, and wiId's faint
sigh
Through its shelltorn branches means,
A call to men. ITO die, to die!'
They answer it with groans and groans,
But obey the call, for more and more"
And Death sits by and grins and grins,
And watches the fast-growing score,
| The harvest OF his sentry's whims.
There they lie huddled, friend and foe,
CHASTITY heaps, English. Hun and
French
And still those piles forever grow,
They are fed by the Men OF the
Trench"
No wooden cross to mark their fail,
No tombstone theirs, no carven rocks,
Just the Lone Tree with its grim call,
Which forever mocks and mocks.
When Jerry's brother had finished,
a dead silence ensued. I nervously
lighted a flag, and out of the corner
of my eye noticed that Sailor Bill was
uneasily squirming on the firestep.
Letting out n sigh, which seemed to
whistle between his teeth, our "guest"
carried on:
"Jerry weren't much at cheerful
writing, because e 'ad a calling.
Even back 'ome in Blighty, e weren't
much for lights nor fun. f took af-
ter our mother. The neighbors called
Ter 'aunted, too, but she weren't. She
could see things, like Jerry.
"This ere lone tree sentinel Jerry
writes about was an old tree in No
Mans land, about q 'undred yards from
cur front-line trench. 1t was pretty
we'll knocked about by bullets and
shell fragments. It made a pretty good
guide post, stickin' sort o. lonely like
up gainst the skyline at night. Re
connoiterlng patrols and bombing par
ties used it to show 'em the wye
back to their trenches, because,
" know, out there in the blackness
it's easy to lose your wye, unless
you ave spirits a-guidin' you.
"Lots of times English and German
patrols would meet near the lone
tree, and many a 'and-to-'and fight
would tyke place around its roots.
"At that part o. the line it were
pretty 'ot, what with the rifle and ma
chine-gun firing. The only time there
would be a luTl in the firing was when
o accommodating patrol was out in
front, and then, as you know, you
couldn't fire for fear of q lifting your
own blokes. All around the lone tree
were scattered many bodies, mostly
English and German. Some of 'em
'ad been a-lyin' there for weeks, and
when the wind were a-blowin' from the
German lines towards us it were sort
Of unpleasant in our front line.
"Every time the captain would call
for soldiers for a accommodating pa
troll, 'Aunted Jerry, as you call i'm,
always put is bloomin' nyme on the
list. 1t got so that after a while e
never asked If e wanted to go; the
captain would just naturally put lis
lyme down as agoin'.
"In our dugout, Jerry would tell me
'ow many dead were around the tree.
'Ow e could count 'em in the dark, I
don't know, but e could see could
see.
Sometimes in the daytime e would
rig up a periscope on lis own, and sit
on the 1restep for hours alookin' out