Funny Stories Told by the Soldiers Page 2
WHEN PRESIDENT WILSON LAUGHED
No doughboy in the charming Champs Elysees theater, Paris, laughedharder than President Wilson when the “Argonne players” put allofficers on the gridiron. It was Broadway’s own 77th division thatpresented a snappy bill before the dignified peace commissioners withthe exception of Col. House, who was ill. The play was entitled “AnnexRevue, 1918.”
Here are some of the sallies at which Mr. Wilson laughed:
“If they don’t send me home soon I’ll be so full of service stripesthat I’ll look like a zebra.”
“I don’t mind if they miss me over there, just so the Germans miss meover here.”
“Paris girls—take it from me—they take it from you. One girl took myidentification tag. She thought it was a franc.”
“By the time you pay your insurance and allotment you owe yourselfmoney.”
The division’s song, “They Didn’t Think We’d Do It, but We Did,” willsoon be heard on Broadway.
BEEF, MILK AND BEER
A cow strayed one day between the German and the English trenches. Bothsides coveted the cow for its milk and meat, but it was sure death togo out and get the cow. So the English threw a note wrapped around astone into the German trenches: “You throw a mark in the air, we willshoot at it. If we hit it, it is our cow. If we miss, we will throw ashilling in the air. If you hit it, the cow is yours.” In a few momentsa sign was lifted over the German trenches reading “O. K.,” and a markshone in the air. But Tommy missed. Then a shilling flashed and Fritzmissed. Five marks and five shillings flashed in the air and all weremissed. Finally the sixth mark flashed and Tommy “scored.” Up came asign from the German trenches: “Cow is yours, but we want our marks.”So Tommy went out, picked up the shillings and marks and carried themarks over to the German trenches. “Good shot,” came from a Teuton.“Here is some beer for you,” and out came six bottles of beer, whichTommy took over to the English lines—with the cow!
TOO BAD SHE HADN’T MORE SONS
Two men riding in a street car were talking about the war. “Well, howmuch longer do you think this thing will last?” asked one of the men ofhis friend. “Pretty hard to tell,” was the answer. “But as for me itcan go right on for years. I’m making big money out of it all right.”And he looked it!
A well-dressed middle-aged woman sat next to the man who had justspoken and, as he finished his speech, she took off her gloves, stoodup and hit the man a stinging blow across his face. “That is for my boyin France,” she said; and before he could recover she hit him anotherone, and added: “And that is for my other boy who is about to sail.”
Then she sat down, while the red-faced man looked about at a carful ofpeople whose approving glances of the woman’s act led him to feel thathe had better leave the car.—_Ladies’ Home Journal._
WHY HE GOT THIRTY DAYS
Everything was ready for kit inspection; the recruits stood lined upready for the officer, and the officer had his bad temper all complete.He marched up and down the line, grimly eyeing each man’s bundle ofneedles and soft soap, and then he singled out Private MacTootle as theman who was to receive his attentions.
“Tooth-brush?” he roared.
“Yes, sir.”
“Razor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hold-all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hm! You’re all right, apparently,” growled the officer. Then he barked:
“Housewife?”
“Oh, very well, thank you,” said the recruit amiably. “How’s yours?”
TIME TO SWEAR OFF
A British officer who was inspecting the line in Flanders came across araw-looking yeoman.
“What are you here for?” asked the officer.
“To report anything unusual, sir.”
“What would you call unusual? What would you do if you saw five battlecruisers steaming across the field?”
“Take the pledge, sir.”
THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIERS
A negro drill sergeant was addressing a squad of colored “rookies”under him. He said: “I wants you niggers to understan’ dat you is tocar’y out all o’ders giben on de risin’ reflection ob de final word obcomman’. Now when we’s passin’ dat reviewin’ stan’, at de comman’ ‘EyesRight!’ I wants to hear ever’ nigger’s eyeballs click.”
NO FOOTSTEPS IN THE AIR
Dear Old Lady—“I suppose you’ll follow in your father’s footsteps whenyou grow up?”
“I can’t; he’s an airman.”
CHICKEN FEED ON BROADWAY
The very prosperous-looking gentleman stopped and permitted the verypretty girl to fasten a carnation in his buttonhole. Then he handed hera quarter.
“What is this for?” he asked.
“You have fed a Belgian baby,” was the reply.
“Nonsense,” said the other, adding a $5 bill to his contribution, “youcan’t do it. Here, take this, and buy a regular meal for the baby.”
THIS WAS IN ENGLAND
Binks—“Ah, what a loss I have suffered in the death of mymother-in-law!”
Jinks—“She meant a good deal to you?”
Binks—“Yes; she was a vegetarian, and gave us her meat-card.”
VERY LADYLIKE
This story is from London: A young woman in khaki uniform and cap met aScotch kilty. She saluted. He curtsied.
HE DROPS INTO POETRY
Frank Proudfoot Jarvis has been at the Front with the First CanadianMounted Rifles for three years, and his sense of humor and the joyof life still survive. In a letter dated, “Somewhere in Mud, 17th ofIreland,” he writes to his brother, Paul Jarvis, of New York:
“Dear Old Top:
“I had expected to be in gay (?) Paree on furlough at this time, swinging down the Boys de Belogne with girls de Belogne on each arm, but this is postponed till April. The papers say that von Hindy has ordered dinner for himself and the Crown Prince on April Fools’ day, and, if we meet, there will be a sound of deviltry by night and a Waterloo that will cause the princelet to wireless his dad:
“‘Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, we’re ”soaked“ again.’
“However that may be, here I am sitting in a shed, with a sheepskin over my shoulders, looking like a lady—but not smelling like one. Fritz is acting rather nasty, sending us his R. S. V. P.’s by the air-line, and we reply P. D. Q., and the ‘wake’ is a howling success as the big bulls and the little terriers ‘barcarole.’ And speaking of wakes, I was awake myself the other night in my hut and the Gothas were whirring overhead and Fritz pulling the string every now and then. It was pitch-dark and a big Bertha had just shaken all creation, when I overheard two ‘blimeys’ fanning buckwheat while they hunted a shell-hole.
“‘Where are yer, Bill?’ asked one.
“I’m ’ere,’ says Bill.
“‘Where’s ’ere?’ says his pal.
“‘Ow the blinkin’ ’ell do I know where ’ere is?’ says Bill.
“Just then Fritz put one alongside of my hut and snuffed out all the candles, but thanks to the good old soft mud—and how we have cussed that mud!—I am writing to you, Old Top, tonight. I expect to be on the hike again in a day or so, I know not where and I do not care. All places look alike to this old kid. They can set me down in a field of mud and inside of forty-eight hours I have got a home fit for a prince, or a ground-hog—sometimes I am living several feet under ground and other times I am living in a tent, a hut, a stable, barn, shed, and, when in luck, in some deserted chateau.”
Jarvis, lying on his back looking up at a twinkling star through a hole in the roof seems to have started a train of verse in his brain, for he writes:
“I got to cogitating about a lot of things, and for the first time in my life I
found rimes running through what I am pleased to call my mind. So, I lighted my dip and jotted down the enclosed doggerel. They say it is a bad sign when a man starts to write poetry, but I don’t for a moment think anyone would call this by that name or that I shall even be acclaimed a _Back_yard Kipling. Besides, as I flourish under the sobriquet ‘Bully Beef,’ owing to my major-general proportions, I am certainly no Longfellow. But here it is, such as it is:
WHERE DO I SLEEP NEXT?
I’ve slept in cradles, I’ve slept in arms, I was a baby then— Unconscious of war’s alarms.
I’ve slept on the prairie Shooting the duck and the goose, I’ve slept in the bush Hunting the elk and the moose.
I’ve slept on steamboats With my bed on the deck, And I’ve slept in church With a kink in my neck.
I’ve slept in fields, Under the stars, And I’ve slept on trains In old box cars.
I’ve slept in beds Of purple and gold, I’ve slept out in Flanders In the mud and the cold.
I’ve slept in dugouts With the rat and the louse, And I’ve slept in France In a fairly good house.
I’ve slept in barns