ose he minds bein' called Woodie by Vee, even now. Anyway,
after consultin' one of his lieutenants he gives her the word that if
Private Mears don't pull any more cut-up stuff between now and a week
from Wednesday he'll probably have forty-eight hours comin' to him.

And for a minute there I thought both Vee and I were let in for a fond
clinch act with Miss Casey. As it is she takes it out in pattin' Vee's
hand and callin' her Dearie.

"A week Wednesday, eh?" says Miss Casey. "Say, ain't that grand! And
believe muh, I mean to work up some little party for Stubby. It's due
him, and the old lady."

"Of course it is," agrees Vee. "And Torchy, you must do all you can to
help."

"Very well, major," says I, salutin'.

And from then on I reports to Vee. It's only the next night that I gives
her the first bulletin from the front. "What do you know?" says I. "Miss
Casey has a hunch that she might organize a block party for the big
night. I don't know whether she can swing it or not, but that's her
scheme."

"But what on earth is a block party, Torchy?" Vee demands.

"Why," I explains, "it's a small town stunt that's being used in the
city these days. Very popular, too. They get all the people in the block
to chip in for a celebration--decorations, music, ice cream, all
that--and generally they raise a block service flag. It takes some
organizin', though."

"How perfectly splendid!" says Vee. "And that is just where you can be
useful."

So that's how I come to spend that next evenin' trottin' up and down
this block in the sixties between Ninth and Amsterdam. I must say it
didn't look specially promisin' as a place to work up community spirit
and that sort of thing. Just a dingy row of old style dumb-bell flats,
most of 'em with "Room to Rent" signs hung out and little basement shops
tucked in here and there. Maybe you know the kind--the asphalt always
littered with paper, garbage cans left out, and swarms of kids playin'
tip-cat or dashin' about on roller skates. Cheap and messy. And to judge
by the names on the letter boxes you'd say the tenants had been shipped
in from every country on the map. Anyway, our noble allies was well
represented--with the French and Italians in the lead and the rest made
up of Irish, Jews, Poles and I don't know what else. Everything but
straight Americans.

Yet when you come to count up the service flags in the front windows you
had to admit that Miss Casey's block must have a good many