Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1939-03-03
Action In a VilNalu1e
rifle and that the Chinese soldier vase

blind .
The Jap bombing planes went away
The villagers of Liuyang counted noses,
looked with passing curiosity at their
if their homes had been burned. Mrs
Tancill completed her Chinese educa-
ton in that spectacle
Tell Jack He'll go after them. He'll
punish them for this!" Christine
sobbed, eff they bomb US again III
kill them myself, I will, I will"
Mrs. Tancill gave the hysterical girl
a quarter-grain of morphine and told
Wang Ma to put her to bed. She had
a nights work waiting and Christine
would have been no help at all .
Mrs. Tancill was waiting in her ROOM
next morning for word that Jacks
gunboat had come. Her thoughts were
dry opium placed under the tongue
does very well, in emergencies when
the morphine runs out, and how raw
hemp can serve for tourniquets and
moss for gauZe packings.
Mother Tancill?"
"Oh -. good morning, Christine. -
Christines face, pallid and subject
eyes and lips, was sober and mature
II behaved badly yesterday I
hope you can forgive me"
f. of course, my dear"
/ Hope frightened Mrs. Tancill's tired
eyes. But Christine said, with logged
lift of chin: TT was silly of me .
trying to shoot back. acted as stupid
! ly as the Japs and Chinese" Then, in
a voice that wavered a little: "a
plague on both their houses. After all,
/ the United States is 5000 miles from
this-this barbarism. Thank God. we're
going home!"
I Nodding, Mrs Tancill made no reply
tr@,
Wen feel better the moment we've
started"
But when the gunboat whistled on
the river Mrs. Tancill did not share
/ Christine's citation. She feared that
Christine would take refuge in the
sense of distance, remoteness and re-
ject yesterdays happenings as an
! Oriental horror, detached from the
world and forever alien to America.
Mrs. Tancill. bundled in her coat
and blankets, sat on the afterdeck of
the gunboat reading a letter. Jack and
Christine. she knew were in the Of
ficers' messroom trying to talk out
their problem. Tenderly. Mrs. Tancill
/ opened the brittle, deeply creased
page:
Lafayette Escadrille,
France. April 2, 1917.
Sweetheart:
We are all waiting for the great
0ews-that our country has chosen
! to stand by England and France.
I feel almost prophetic tonight!
The verdict will be Fight" and
democracy will survive this war.
Then, predict. we will all fall to
quarreling-within and among our
/ selves. That is the way of democ-
racies. We will be tired and blood
sick and before long we will Won
der why we fought the Boche at all
I want you to keep this letter
and show it to me when the grous-
ing starts, because I will do my
! share There will be thousands of
cynics to spit on the graves of men
who died in this war and cry
Thou fool" Just remind me to say
to them: who invaded Belgium
And let us teach young Jack what
we know in our hearts to be true
/ liberty is worth dying for. Let us
be honest with him and say: Even
this war will not make the world
+ safe for liberty. 1t will be chal-
lenged by bloody DULLES, if not in
our time, in-yours." I only hope he
will be man enough, when that
time comes, to make the right
choice
a a. m.) Your prophet must
continue in his next. There's
show on.
All my love.
/ John.
A distant whistle broke in on Mrs.
Tancills dry-eyed reverie. She looked
across the broad gray river and saw
another American gunboat bound up
stream. This gunboat was conveying
several oil tankers. Mrs. Tancill got
to her feet and asked an idle question
OF a passing seaman. perhaps because
she was on her way to show his faith
er's last letter to Jack and dreaded a
final showdown with Christine.
What boat is that?" she asked
The seaman squinted at the distant
gunbOat.
That's the Panay," he said
DDr1IuoronIc noHrx1