kind of weak on the effort, but there was a noticeable crescendo when
the sergeant passed the word down the squad that the company would be
kept marching until everybody had joined in the singing.

"We swung into camp that night with every voice raising lustily on 'One
Grasshopper Hopped Right Over Another Grasshopper's Back,' and after
dinner the billets just sprouted melody, everything from ragtime to
Christmas carols and baby lullabies."

One noticeable characteristic about our soldiers during that training
period before they had come in contact with the enemy, was a total
absence of violent antipathy toward all persons and things Teutonic.

On the march the men then sang "We'll Hang the Damned Old Kaiser to a
Sour Apple Tree," but at that time I never heard any parodies on the
"Gott Straffe Germany" theme. Our soldiers were of so many different
nationalistic extractions and they had been thrown together for so short
a time, that as yet no especial hatred of the enemy had developed.

An illustration of this very subject and also the manner in which our
boys got along with the civilian populations of the towns they occupied
came to my notice.

A driving rain which filled the valley with mist and made the hills look
like mountain tops projecting above the clouds, had resulted in the
abandonment of the usual daily drills. The men had spent the day in
billets writing letters home, hearing indoor lectures from instructors,
playing with the French children in the cottage doorways, or taking
lessons in French from the peasant girls, whose eyes were inspirations
to the dullest pupils.

I spent several hours in a company commander's quarters while he
censored letters which the men had submitted for transmission back home.
The Captain looked long at a letter in his hand, smiled and called for
his orderly.

"Tell Private Blank I want to see him here right away," were the
Captain's instructions. Blank's name was not quite so German as
Sourkraut, but it had a "berger" ending that was reminiscent of beer,
pretzels and wooden shoes.

"Here's a letter written in German," said the Captain to me, referring
to the open missive. "It's addressed to somebody by the same name as
Blank, and I presume it is to some one in his family. Blank is one of
the best men in my company, and I know that the letter is harmless, but
it is impossible for me to pass it when written in an enemy language."

The door opened and a tall, blonde enlist