---- WHEN PACKS ARE LIGHTEST ---- BY CHAPLAIN MOODY. ---- Probably the cow is the least complaining and discriminating of all animals, yet it is worthy of note that the wise farmer who understands his cows does everything to make them as happy as possible and studies their comfort and convenience as far as possible. This is not because he is a sentimentalist, but for the very opposite reason. He knows his cows will give more milk and he will get more money therefrom if they are contented in their bovine minds and not worried by the high cost of living and other problems. The expert poultry man will tell you that the frame of mind of his feathered employes has a very direct bearing on the egg output, and so he tries to study their happiness. Recently experiments have been carried on in some factories with phonographs, and it has been proven that if the fingers of the employes are stimulated by some music they enjoy, it is possible to get more work out of them. In some Cuban cigar factories it is the customary thing to employ a man to read to the cigar makers some story which they like, as, under these conditions, they work better and faster. All this is not done out of sentiment, again, but because it contributes to efficiency. The cow, the hen, the factory girl and the cigar wrapper do better work for being in a pleasant frame of mind. While we of the American Expeditionary Forces do not fall into any of these classes, the same is nevertheless probably true of us. We can be better soldiers if we are cheerful than we can if we are not. It may be difficult to see how you can sight a gun any better for smiling or bayonet a man more effectively when you are cheerful. But if we believe what we are told, this is so, and, hence, since we all want to be good soldiers, it becomes a duty toward this end to be happy, just as it is a duty to wash your face or police your bunk, or to keep your rifle clean. It is a _duty_ to be happy. That is all very well and good to say, some one interrupts at this point, but you cannot be happy when your feet are sore or you do not have all you want to eat. Or, it would be easy to be happy if the mail would come, or they would "bust" the Mess Sergeant, or take some other great step forward in the improvement of the army. But we all know better. Our happiness is not dependent on conditions outside of us, but on our hearts within us, and some of the happiest men have been the victims of extraordinary misfortune and some of the unhappiest people have been possessors of great wealth who could have all they wanted. The most joyous book in the world was written by an old man in prison who had come to the conclusion that when they let him out they would chop his head off. Many a man has just grinned himself out of worse fixes than you or I are ever apt to get into.