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William Allen White. The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me
The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me
Table of Contents
CHAPTER. I IN WHICH WE BEGIN OUR SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. II IN WHICH WE OBSERVE THE "ROCKET'S RED GLARE" III IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER "BOMBS BURSTING IN AIR" IV WHEREIN WE FIND THAT "OUR FLAG IS STILL THERE" V IN WHICH WE DISCERN THINGS "BY THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT" VI WHEREIN WE BECOME A TRIO AND JOURNEY TO ITALY. VII WHEREIN WE CONSIDER THE WOMAN PROPOSITION. VIII IN WHICH WE DISCOVER "A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH" IX IN WHICH WE RETURN TO "THE LAND OF THE FREE" ILLUSTRATIONS
THE MARTIAL ADVENTURES OF HENRY AND ME
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH WE BEGIN OUR SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH WE OBSERVE THE "ROCKET'S RED GLARE"
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER BOMBS BURSTING IN AIR
CHAPTER IV
WHEREIN WE FIND THAT "OUR FLAG IS STILL THERE"
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH WE DISCERN THINGS "BY THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT"
CHAPTER VI
WHEREIN WE BECOME A TRIO AND JOURNEY TO ITALY
CHAPTER VII
WHEREIN WE CONSIDER THE WOMAN PROPOSITION
CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH WE DISCOVER "A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH"
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH WE RETURN TO "THE LAND OF THE FREE"
THE END. APPENDIX A
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William Allen White
Published by Good Press, 2019
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Perhaps it is the other way around, and maybe youth is the only game in the world worth playing and that the gains of youth, service and success and follies and failures, are only the chips and counters. We were brought to these conclusions more or less by a young person, a certain Miss Ingersoll, or perhaps her name only sounded like that; for we called her the Eager Soul. And she was a pretty girl, too—American pretty: Red hair—lots of blowy, crinkly red hair that was always threatening to souse her face and ears; blue eyes of the serious kind and a colour that gave us the impression that she did exercises and could jab a punching bag. Indeed before we met her, we began betting on the number of hours it would take her to tell us that she took a cold plunge every morning. Henry expected the statement on the second day; as a matter of fact it came late on the first day! She was that kind. But there was no foolishness about her. She was a nurse—a Red Cross nurse, and she made it clear that she had no illusions about men; we suspected that she had seen them cut up and knew their innermost secrets! Nevertheless she was tremendously interesting, and because she, too, was from the middle west, and possibly because she realized that we accepted her for what she was, she often paced the rounds of the deck between us. We teased her more or less about a young doctor of the Johns Hopkins unit who sometimes hovered over her deck chair and a certain Gilded Youth—every boat-load has its Gilded Youth—whose father was president of so many industrial concerns, and the vice-president of so many banks and trust companies that it was hard to look at the boy without blinking at his gilding. Henry was betting on the Gilded Youth; so the young doctor fell to me. For the first three or four days during which we kept fairly close tab on their time, the Doctor had the Gilded Youth beaten two hours to one. Henry bought enough lemonade for me and smoking room swill of one sort and another to start his little old Wichita ocean But it was plain that the Gilded Youth interested her. And in a confidential moment filled with laughter and chaff and chatter she told us why: "He's patronizing me. I mean he doesn't know it, and he thinks I don't know it; but that's what he's doing. I interest him as a social specimen. I mean—I'm a bug and he likes to take me up and examine me. I think I'm the first 'Co-ed' he ever has seen; the first girl who voted and didn't let her skirts sag and still loved good candy! I mean that when he found in one half hour that I knew he wore nine dollar neckties and that I was for Roosevelt, the man nearly expired; he was that puzzled! I'm not quite the type of working girl whom Heaven protects and he chases, but—I mean I think he is wondering just how far Heaven really will protect my kind! When he decides," she confided in a final burst of laughter, and tucking away her overflowing red hair, "I may have to slap him—I mean don't you know—"
And we did know. And being in his late forties Henry began tantalizing me with odds on the Gilded Youth. He certainly was a beautiful boy—tall, chestnut haired, clean cut, and altogether charming. He played Brahms and Irving Berlin with equal grace on the piano in the women's lounge on the ship and an amazing game of stud poker with the San Francisco boys in the smoking room. And it was clear that he regarded the Eager Soul as a social adventure somewhat higher than his mother's social secretary—but of the same class. He was returning from a furlough, to drive his ambulance in France, and the Doctor was going out to join his unit somewhere in France down near the Joan of Arc country. He told us shyly one day, as we watched the wake of the ship together, that he was to be stationed at an old chateau upon whose front is carved in stone, "I serve because I am served!" When he did not repeat the motto we knew that it had caught him. He had been at home working on a germ problem connected with army life, hardly to be mentioned in the presence of Mrs. Boffin, and he was forever casually discussing his difficulties with the Eager Soul; and a stenographer, who came upon the two at their tete-a-tete one day, ran to the girls in the lounge and gasped, "My Lord, Net, if you'd a heard it, you'd a jumped off the boat!"
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