ng
line "going over the top" in the gray of the morning, and when they
had got lined up, outside the wire, and started on their plodding
journey which is the "charge" of now-a-days, one waved to his neighbor
who happened to be on a slight ridge above him and sang out: "You tak
the High Road an' I'll tak the Low Road." And immediately the song
spread up and down the line; even above the tremendous roar of the
guns you could hear that battalion going into action to the tune of
_Loch Lomond_.

So, you see, there is a difference between "songs about soldiers" and
"soldier's songs," the latter being the ones he sings because they
appeal to his fancy and the former including the long and constantly
growing list of cheaply-sentimental airs intended for home
consumption. The difference between the two classes is as great as
that between war as it really is and war as the people at home think
it is. This is a difference which will never be understood by any
excepting those who have been over there. Those so unfortunate as to
be unable to learn it at first hand will be forever ignorant of the
real meaning of war. There is no language which can adequately
describe it; no artist can paint it; no imagination can conceive it.
It is just short of the knowledge of one who has died and returned to
life. So, by all means, let us have songs if they serve to cheer or
amuse any one, whether at home or abroad.

It will probably do the soldier no harm to have people think he is a
"little tin god on wheels" any more than it will hurt him to be
belittled by the sickly mollycoddling name of "Sammie," no matter how
deeply he resents it. It is astonishing to me that our newspapers
persist in the use of this appellation in the face of the fact, which
they should know, that it is obnoxious to the American soldier
himself. Would they call a Canadian or Australian or Scotch soldier a
"Tommy"? If they do, I advise them to hide out and do it by telephone.
Such sobriquets, to be of any real value, must come spontaneously;
perhaps by accident; possibly conferred by an enemy. They can never be
"invented."

But, to get back to our story. This country through which we passed
is an historical pageant,--from the very port of Harfleur, which
figures largely in the stories of both Norman and English invasion,
all the way up the valley of the Seine. Who could see Rouen, for the
first time, without experiencing a thrill of sentiment as the memories
of Jeanne