When the war god reached out his talons And showed me the way to the fray, My sweethearts shed tears by the gallons— There was weeping and gnashing that day. Don’t blame them for crying like babies; I’m surprised they recovered at all, ’Cause I sure made a hit with the ladies, Just one look at me and they’d fall. Take Evelyn or Peggy or Jennie— They surely were there with the looks, And I’ve never regretted a penny I blew in on flowers and books. And Mildred—that kid was a thriller, A complexion like peaches and cream; She was sweeter than Marilynn Miller, And Phyllis—oh, boy, what a dream! And now that I’m over the ocean, I remember them each by their smile; But there’s one who gets all my devotion, And I’m thinking of her all the while. When my clothes need mending and scrubbing, And only one sock I can find, And my knuckles are swollen with rubbing, Why, girlies, you’re far from my mind. My thoughts are for one who is dearer Than Phyllis or Peggy or Mae; Each day that I’m gone she seems nearer— And she’s feeble, but smiling and gay. HOWARD A. HERTY, Corp., 1st Army Hq. THE LITTLE DREAMS Now, France is a pleasant land to know If you’re back in a billet town, And a hell of a hole for the human mole Where the trenches burrow down; But where doughboys be in their worn O.D., Whatever their daily grinds, There’s a little dream on this sort of theme In the background of their minds: “Oh, gee whiz, I’d give my mess kit And the barrel off my gat Just to take a stroll up Main Street In a new Fedora hat; Just to hit the Rexall drug store For an ice-cream soda stew, And not a doggoned officer To tell me what to do.” Here’s a youngster sprawled in an old shell hole With a Chauchat at his eye; There’s some wide H.E. on the next O.P. And a Fokker in the sky. It’s a hundred yards to his jump-off trench And ten to the German wire, But what does he hear, more loud and clear Than the crack of harassing fire?