Funny Stories Told by the Soldiers Page 4
Minister—“No’ the noo, laddie! After the ceremony I’ll be verrapleased!”
AMERICAN HUMOR IN FRANCE
The sense of humor of the American is a joy to the French, who missthis quality sadly in the English. A young French woman was conductingtwo young American officers around Versailles. When they got in thepark the French girl said: “Do you know that the French have a prettysaying, ‘The smaller the ivy leaf, the dearer the love?’ So I want eachone of you to find the tiniest leaf possible and send it to the onethat’s waiting at home.” The men set out, and the first man came backwith a perfectly enormous leaf, which he told the girl he had pluckedfor his mother-in-law! The second officer came back with a leaf evenlarger and, when asked what loved one was to have that tiny leaf, hesaid: “Why, this is for the Kaiser!”
SNOBBERY SQUELCHED
On seeing the haughty aristocrat about to disturb a seriously woundedsoldier, the Red Cross nurse in charge interposed.
“Excuse me, madam,” she said, “but——”
She was rudely interrupted by Lady Snobleigh, who cried:
“Woman, you forget yourself. I’m very particular to whom I speak.”
“Oh,” quietly answered the nurse, “that is where we differ. I’m not!”
BLASTED HOPES
“Where is the new recruit?”
“Well, sir, since he went, an hour or two ago, to sew on a button withguncotton, no one seems to have seen anything of him.”
PROFITABLE AUTHORSHIP
The Girl—“And can you manage on your army pay, Phil?”
The “Sub”—“Hardly; but I do a bit of writing besides.”
The Girl—“What kind of writing?”
The “Sub”—“Oh, letters to the guv’nor!”
THE “LONG, LONG TRAIL” OVER THERE
Paris, Nov., 1918.—In the logging camps and sawmills, in barracks andon the drill grounds, in camps and on the march, in “Y” and Red Crosshuts, at all hours of the day and night, wherever in France the Yankcrusaders were at work, I have heard these lines sung, hummed, andwhistled:
“There’s a long, long trail a-winding Into the land of my dreams, Where the nightingales are singing And a white moon beams. There’s a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true, Till the day when I’ll be going down That long, long trail with you.”
Wherever a piano found its way into the American lines someone wassure to be playing this chorus; and, dodging in and out of a convoyalong the rutted and winding hillside roads in the zone of operations,in drizzle and mud and low flung clouds, one was certain to hear somecamion load of lusty doughboys going to the “Long Trail.”
But it remained for H. A. Rodeheaver, Billy Sunday’s trombone expert,to put a new touch to it. He put the “longing” into the long trail witha dash of Sundayesqueness that smeared sawdust all over the long trail.
“Rodey,” as the soldiers call him, has been singing his way through theAmerican camps in France and emulating his picturesque master, whenopportunity afforded, by laying down a metaphorical “sawdust trail” andinviting the boys to hit it again in their hearts.
It was quite remarkable how many hands went up in every camp andbarracks and hut when he asked them how many had attended a Sundayrevival back home. Then he started singing the songs they heard atthese meetings, usually beginning with “Brighten the Corner Where YouAre.”
He has just the quality of voice that got down deep over here, whenthe night was dark and damp and the dim light but half illuminated theplace, and the boys naturally were letting their thoughts fly backhome. They warmed up to him, for he’s a good scout, according to theirway of thinking, and the first thing they knew he was asking them tocall for any song they would like to hear. About the first voice thatresponded called for the “Long, Long Trail.”
“All right, men,” he said, with a sincere smile, and his magnetic face,beneath the wavy black hair, seemed to exude a hypnotic fascination. Henodded to his pianist and they started. The barracks, or hut, or campresounded with the “Long Trail.”
“Fine, fine,” beamed Rodey from the rough board platform. “You know,men, that’s a mighty fine piece of music. Let’s sing it again; now, alltogether,” and the sound swells a little higher this time.
“Once more,” and Rodey waved his arm in lieu of a baton.
The sea of faces brightened perceptibly, even under the dim lights.
“Now, men,” said Rodey, “just sing that chorus over again and I’ll trythe trombone.”
That trombone did the business. Rodey gets a sort of combination altoand tenor harmony out of that old trombone that brings the home folksright into the meeting.
“Now, men, once more, very softly,” and he played the harmonyplaintively and fetchingly.
He’s got ’em, and the moment has arrived for sprinkling the sawdust.
“Before we go on with our little program, men,” he said, “let us justbow our heads for a minute in prayer and ask God to help us make thegood fight, help us to do the work we came over here to do like men.”The men bowed their heads and he added:
“Just before we ask God’s blessing on these brave men, if there is aboy out there who feels that he has not been living quite as he knowshis mother would like to have him live, if there is a boy out there whofeels in an especial way the need of God’s help at this hour, will heplease raise his hand.”
The place was very still. A hand went up way in the back.
“Yes,” Rodey said. “God bless you, boy.”
Then another and another, and soon scores of hands were held up, whilethey had their heads bowed.
Then Rodey prayed one of those conversational prayers, and he made it apersonal appeal for each one of the boys whose hands had gone up.
It was not Rodey’s plan to send the boys back to their barracks withonly seriousness and longing in their heads. He’s one of the mostadroit handlers of an audience in Europe. He’d got the main ideaplanted and now he broke into smiles and there was an infectious laughin his voice.
He was again talking to red-blooded men who were going out to fight. Sohe told a few corking stories, humorous but clean, and got down to theminstead of talking over them. He was one of ’em. He wanted to send themaway with a good taste in their mouths.
Dunbar’s “When Melinda Sings” he does to perfection. Once in awhile hepulls the “Hunk o’ Tin” parody on the Kipling poem.
Then they sing some more, both democratic music and old hymns, andfinally they all stand up, after he has launched a two-minute patriotictalk that thrills, and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Rodey never has a set program. He sizes up each new audience with aglance and in two minutes knows about what line of entertainment heought to give them. If it’s a crowd that likes good stories, they getit. If it is a meeting that likes a Bible talk, they get that, and thegreat Sunday himself hasn’t much on his pupil in that line. But henever lets a crowd get away with a solemn face. He leads them up thehill and down the hill, and finally sends them back to the blanketsfeeling refreshed, inspirited, and cheerful.
And when Rodey hit a camp of Negro troops—man, O man! what he did tothem!
He thinks the war has been a holy war, a war of crusaders against theterrible Huns, and wants them beaten to a standstill. He insistson the knockout punch, and believes the world will be a betterworld for everybody after Fritz and his gang have been completelychastized.—CHARLES N. WHEELER, in _The Chicago Tribune_.
HIS OWN PERSONAL WAR
General Leonard Wood tells the story of a captain to whom was assigneda new orderly, a fresh recruit. “Your work will be to clean my boots,buttons, belt, and so forth, shave me, see to my horse, which you mustgroom thoroughly, and clean the equipment. After that you go to yourhut, help to serve the breakfast, and after breakfa
st lend a handwashing up. At eight o’clock you go on parade and drill till twelveo’clock——”
“Excuse me, sir,” broke in the recruit, “is there anyone else in thearmy besides me?”
WHEN TOMMY LAUGHS
There are many bright lines in the soldiers’ letters home, as _Punch_and other papers note.
“A clergyman recently gave a lecture on ‘Fools’ at the ‘hut’ back ofour station,” writes a boy from the Somme. “The tickets of admissionwere inscribed, ‘Lecture on Fools. Admit one.’ There was a largeaudience.”
And from Calais comes this:
“You will note with interest and tell the shirkers they’re missingsomething here. The ‘G’ came off the big sign east of the station hereand we now read: ‘The only English love makers in the city.’”
ONE OF THOSE IRISH BULLS
The recruit from Ireland spent his leave in England. Asked on hisreturn to the front what he thought of the place, he said:
“Faith, London is a great city; but it’s no place for a poor man unlesshe has plenty of money.”
WHEN GERMANY SALUTED A PIG
A Belgian farmer saved his bacon in an unusual way. He heard that theGermans were