After the letters, Sabinsport's great interest was _The Stars and Stripes_. There was no paper published on the globe so popular in the town. A half dozen of the boys had been inspired to send it home by the clever appeal of the paper itself. "Do the home folks a good turn by having us send them _The Stars and Stripes_ every week," the editor said at the head of his page, in an appealing display type. "There are not many things you can do from this side of the water," he said, "for your folks or your old pal or that girl back home. _The Stars and Stripes_ would come to them like another letter every week or another little present." The doughboys had not passed it up, as he advised, and the paper came to be to the home folks all that he had prophesied. Intimate, natural, humorous, eloquent, the best bit of editing the war had inspired, _The Stars and Stripes_ brought to Sabinsport such a sense of how the boys were thinking and feeling and acting, the whole town was comforted and helped. One supreme consolation it brought--the certainty that whatever the war might be doing to their boys, it was not changing their tastes. _The Stars and Stripes_ proved that. It was "just like them." Although it was known that many of their men were with the divisions fighting along the Marne, and although every night when the _Argus_ came, the first thing that the town turned to was the casualty list, they went a long time untouched--so long that Sabinsport came to have a curious kind of jealousy. The City, twenty-five miles away, had lost heavily. She rejoiced, and yet she somehow wanted to pay her price. But when it came--poor little Sabinsport! It came like a stroke of lightning. One evening Dick was called up by Ralph's successor in the _Argus_ office. "Parson," he said, in a broken voice, "I wish you would come down. It's dreadful! The casualty list has just come in--there are twelve of our men dead, Parson--twelve of Sabinsport's boys. Ralph's name is among them. How are we going to get it to the people? There is no notice to any family yet, as I know, and I cannot call them up. Won't you come down and help me?" It was not long before Dick was bending over the list; and the two men were asking themselves who would better go here, who there, who's the friend of this family, who the friend of that? They called up the priest for the three of his own boys; the Rev. Mr. Pepper, who, in spite of his pacifism, still had kept a gentle heart, for one of his flock. They called up Jake Mulligan, and between them the sad duty was performed. The news flew. All Sabinsport wept that night. The next morning there was laid at every door in town--subscribers or not--a little extra sheet of the _Argus_--Sabinsport's Honor Roll. And first in the list was the name of Lieut. Michael Sullivan, killed at Delville Wood, July 15, 1916.