Part 6 (2/2)

When I landed at Newport News, the first sound that I heard was the machine-gun hammering of thousands of riveters building s.h.i.+ps. I know how vital that service is to the boys ”over there.” They could not live without the s.h.i.+ps.

Then I came from Newport News to Was.h.i.+ngton, on my way home, and we entered that great city by night. The Capitol dome was flooded with light. As I looked at it I said to myself: ”To-day from this city emanates the light of the world. The eyes of the whole of humanity are turned toward this city. That lighted dome is symbol of all this.”

As I looked out of the train window as we entered Was.h.i.+ngton from Richmond, Virginia, I thought: ”Surely not the s.h.i.+pbuilding but the ideals that go out from the Capitol are the most important 'Services of Supplies.'”

The next morning I was in Pittsburgh. As my train pulled into that great city, all along the Ohio River I saw great armies of laboring men going and coming from work. As one tide of humanity flowed out of the mills across the bridges, another flowed in, and I said: ”Surely not the s.h.i.+pbuilders, nor the ideal-makers at Was.h.i.+ngton, but this great army of laboring men in America forms the most important part of 'The Services of Supplies'!”

Then I came to New York. In turn I spoke before two significant groups of men and women. One was a group of women meeting each day to make Red Cross bandages, and knowing the scarcity of such in France, and knowing how at times nurses have had to tear up their skirts to bandage wounds of dying boys, I said: ”Surely this is it!”

Then I spoke before the artists of New York, with Mr. Charles Dana Gibson heading them, and as I had seen their stirring posters everywhere arousing the nation to action, and knew what an important part the artists and writers in France had played in ”The Services of Supplies,” I said: ”Surely these are the most important!”

But I have found at last that none of these are the most important of all. There is another section to ”The Services of Supplies,” and that is more important than the mechanic behind the pilot, more important than the man who a.s.sembles the motor trucks and the ambulances in France, more important than the s.h.i.+p-builders, more important than the lawmakers themselves, more important even than the President, more important than that great army of laborers which I saw in Pittsburgh, more important than the artists and the Red Cross workers, and that supreme and important part of the great ”Services of Supplies” is the father and mother, the wife, the child, the home, the church, the great ma.s.s of the common thinking, feeling, suffering, praying, hoping people of America. If these fail, all fails. If these lose faith and courage and hope, all lose faith and courage and hope. If these grow faint-hearted, all before them lose heart. These are they who furnish the real sinews of war. These are they who must furnish the morale, the love, the letters, the prayers, the support to both government and soldier. Yes, the common folks over here at home, I have seen clearly, are the most important part of the great division of the army that we call ”The Services of Supplies.” May we never fail the boy in France.

These are the Silhouettes of Service.

VIII

SILHOUETTES OF SORROW

I wondered at his hold on the hearts of the boys in a certain hospital in France. It was a strange thing. I went through the hospital with him and it seemed to me, judging by the conversation with the boys in the hundreds of cots, that he had just done something for a boy, or he was just in the process of doing something, or he was just about to do something.

They called him ”daddy.”

All day long I wondered at his secret, for he was so unlike any man I had seen in France in the way he had won the hearts of the boys. I was curious to know. Something in his eyes made me think of Lincoln. They had a look like Lincoln in their depths.

That night when I was about to leave I blunderingly stumbled on his secret. About the only ornament in his bare pine room in the hut was a picture on the desk. I seized on it immediately, for next to a sweet-faced baby about the finest thing on earth to look at is a boy between five and twelve. And here were two, dressed in plaid suits, with white collars, tousled hair, clean, fine American boys.

I exclaimed as I picked the picture up:

”What a fine pair of lads!”

Then I knew that I had, unwittingly, stumbled into his secret, for a look of infinite pain swept over his face.

”They are both dead. Last August wife called me on the phone and said that something awful had happened to the boys. They were all we had, and I hurried home.

”They had gone out on a Boy Scout picnic. The older had gone in swimming in the river and had gotten beyond his depth. The younger went in after him and both were drowned.”

”I'm sorry I brought it back,” I said humbly.

He didn't notice what I said, but went on.

”Wife and I were broken-hearted. There didn't seem much to live for.

We had lost all. Then came this Y. M. C. A. work, and we thought that we would like to come over here and do for all the boys in the army what we could not do for our own. And now wife and I are here, and every time I do something for a wounded boy in this hospital, I feel as if I were serving my own dear lads.”

”And you are,” I said. ”And if the mothers and fathers of America know that men and women of your type are here looking after their lads it will give them a new sense of comfort and you will be serving them also.”

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