There were music and laughter in the Y.M.C.A. recreation hall in Meaux, France. A pretty French girl was singing and dancing for a group of American soldiers, who were gaily clapping time for her. She did not interest the tired trio that was among the number of men sent back from the front for a short period of recuperation. Neither did the groups at the tables interest them, blackjack held no charms for men who were tired to the very marrow of their bones. They were thankful to be back from the front alive, after the dangers they had seen there. No one could have made them believe that it was like that out in the battlefields, a hell on earth where soldiers were forced to kill and forced to die like dogs!

"Well, boys, it is three months since we landed at Bordeaux," Gene said to John and Squatty as they sat down at an empty table in the one side of the hall.

"Yep, three dam' months of hell, an' we're still together!" Squatty remarked, leaning his chin on his cupped palms, with his elbows propped on the table.

"I will never forget the day they sighted the Boche submarine, just as we were finishing abandoned ship drill out there on the Atlantic," John said with a half-hearted smile.

"Boy, I am the one to remember that!" Gene said.

"How was it you didn't go down when the whistle first blew?"

"It was curiosity, man, curiosity," Squatty answered before Gene could.

"Yes, I wanted to be able to say that I had seen a German submarine," Gene explained. "Gosh, I can hear the Captain yet as he roared, 'Get down or I'll shoot you down!' I turned and looked down the muzzle of his gun and made one leap that took me clear to the bottom of the long hatchway."

"Cripes, I remember you counted the steps the next time you climbed them. Twenty-two, you said there was." Squatty cackled when he thought of how Gene had looked as he landed at the bottom just as the name of Eugene Whitmer was being called out from the roll.

"They got the dirty U-boat and that is all that matters," John said and sighed.

"If they hadn't, that bunch of black boys in the company would have died of fright before a German torpedo ever came near our boat." Gene was grinning at the thought of how the negroes had left their dice lying on the floor and had raised to a kneeling position with their hands clasped over their heads, shaking like leaves from head to foot as they begged the "Good Lawd" to keep them safe from harm.

"They are surely superstitious and easily frightened," John remarked.

"Oh, Lordy, I'll never forget the night you two birds scared the black boys so bad that they jumped into the pond with their pants on!"

The boys recalled how they had approached a group of colored privates one dark stormy night just back of the front lines. Without saying a word, they had turned their eyes skyward, as if watching something in the air. When all of the black boys' eyes had been sufficiently round, John had nudged Gene's arm sharply and had said, "Here he comes!" How the negroes scattered into the woods, many of them landing in a nearby pool of water with their clothes on, not realizing that the white boys were just playing a joke on them.

"But, say, when it comes to real fighting those colored boys are surely good, they are true Americans!" Gene gave them credit for the bravery he had seen displayed at the front, in the fighting lines.

"Ooh, look! Fellers, look!" Squatty sat as if he had suddenly been charmed, "Watch that baby step!"

A second French dancer had come out to entertain. She could spin on the tips of her toes until her full short skirt almost stood straight out around her waist. "And what a smile!" Squatty added, "Come on, you guys! Let's get a cognac and cheer up a bit!"

"Run along if you want a drink," Gene answered. "But count us out."

"Ok, but you'll miss something if you don't git up front. I feel rested a'ready," Squatty said as he arose and disappeared into the crowd of soldiers that were trying to put the scenes of war in the background of their memories.

For a time, the two boys in khaki sat silent and motionless, content to rest and think. Gene's mind flashed alternately from thoughts of home to those of the battlefield. In her ears was the rumble of the "Sidedoor Pullman" that had carried them back from the front. He could see himself and his beautiful Laura Mae as they had stood hand in hand before the Reverend Duncan and the two witnesses. He imagined he could again feel the soft warmth of her hand and see the happy light in her pretty soft brown eyes. He wondered why he had received only the one letter from her. He felt down into his pocket. There over his heart was the little gold pin, secure, but out of sight. In looking down, he noticed the new stripes on his sleeve, then he could see the officer making a sergeant out of him, just because they thought he had been brave. "Brave, indeed," he thought. "Those Heinies were as innocent as I am of causing this horrible war, still I was called brave because I shot them down just like I used to shoot the Jackrabbits on the knoles back home!" He shuddered as he remembered how his platoon had come upon an old deserted barn only to be fired upon from a German machine gun nest hidden there. He was the one who had crawled around while shells whizzed past him, missing him by mere inches, and he had caused the two frightened Germans, from the nest, to flee into the woods, meeting their death because his brain, drunk with excitement of war, had commanded his fingers to pull the trigger. Once! Twice! The lieutenant had patted him on the back and had said, "Good boy, I know it was in you to be brave!"

He could see the fields of tall grain, that would have meant bread for the starving citizens, trampled under the feet of the moving line od=s soldiers. How unfair it all seemed to him.

He thought of a night he had spent in a small French village. All of the citizens went up into a large cave in the side of a mountain each evening, where they were safe from the bombs that were dropped from the German planes that flew over the village each night. Gene and his four companions were warned but they chose to sleep in their trunk instead of fleeing to the mountain. By midnight, they wished they had chosen the safer place. Shells dropped all around them. The truck standing next to them was blown into tiny bits, but they had been left unharmed. Gene was sure God had preserved them.

Again, his mind traveled back across the Atlantic Ocean. He saw the stately Statue of Liberty and the mammoth buildings in New York. "She wants to see it someday, the sweet kid," he thought. "Someday I will show her all of the wonders of the world if I live through this hell." He remembered that his uncle had written in his last letter that the spirit of service had overpowered Laura Mae and had led her to join the Red Cross. What he would give to know just where she was and to be sure that she was safe. He looked up and saw John opening a letter.

"Haven't you read your letter yet?" Gene asked.

"No, Gene, I've been too tired to even get excited about my mail. She sent me a whole roll of Kingsford Daily Newspapers and this letter. Would you like me to read it aloud to you?"

"Sure, read it. Any news from back home helps," Gene answered.

In the letter, the mother told John of all the local happenings that would be of interest to him, then she went into detail about the girl she had living with her. Her name was May Elison, a friend of his cousin June's. She described the girl's eyes and curly hair and told him how she could sing and play the piano. Gene listened intently until John finished, then he spoke half to himself. "She may be beautiful but I know she can not be as beautiful as my sweetheart."

"Say, tell me about your sweetheart, your bride," John urged. "You only barely mention her as if she were too sacred to discuss."

"Well, I have never shown you this, but this what she looks like." Gene drew the picture Laura Mae had given, from his shirt pocket and handed it to John.

"Boy, she is a pippin, isn't she?" John commented. He noted the autograph, "Lovingly, Laura Mae."

Gene sat looking ahead, as if in a trance, scarcely seeing the continual line of soldiers, nurses, and Y.M.C.A. workers that were steadily entering and leaving the building. Suddenly, he straightened with a start.

"Did you see that Red Cross nurse that just went out?" he asked John excitedly.

"No, did you know her?"

"I am not sure but I think I do." He jumped to his feet and ran out to catch the girl.

"Martha! Martha!" he called after her. She turned then stopped.

"Why it is Gene Whitmer!" she exclaimed. "How are you?"

"All Ok. What news have you from home?"

"Oh, Gene, lots—have you heard from Laura Mae lately?"

"I have only had one letter from her since I left home and that was before we crossed the pond." Gene looked troubled. "In Uncle Everett's letter, he had said that she had joined the Red Cross as you did. Do you know where she is?" He was eager for word of his sweetheart.

"Let's sit down on that stone bench under the tree," she suggested, and they went to it and when they were seated, she continued. "Gene, she has not joined the Red Cross. That is only a blind Father is using back home so people won't know where she really is."

"Where she really is?" Gene repeated with a puzzled look.

"Yes, Mother wrote to me and told me about you too being secretly married. She said that Laura Mae had left home because of things Father has said to her. She thought she had gone to Denver to my father's sister again but she has not heard from her."

"My God, Martha," he uttered. "I didn't know anything about her only what Uncle wrote each time. I am sure that she writes to me but her letters must get lost. Maybe they go done with the ships on the ocean."

"Mother did not tell me near all about her, she thins that I have enough to worry about.

"Martha, do you know more?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes, I saw June Malcolm just after she landed in France and she told me everything."

"Please, tell me what you know," he pleaded, "I have a right to know about her."

Martha told him the story Laura Mae had told June Malcolm in the rooming house the day she left Kingsford. She told him everything about her physical condition and that she thought her father was keeping her letters from her.

"Do you know where she is now?" Gene asked when the girl had finished her story."

"She was in Kingsford, then, but June is not sure where she is now. None of us know where she is, or she is."

"My sweetheart," he moaned, "I never dreamed that anything like that could have happened. It is not fair for her to suffer so alone."

"Gene, in a way, I feel responsible for the way Father felt toward you. From the night you carried her books home for her, way back in grade school. I tattled about it to Father and he whipped her for letting you carry them because he thought she was too young to have boys paying attention to her. I was so selfish, Gene. I did not want Father to like anyone but me," she explained brokenly as tears rolled one by one down her tired cheeks. "This was has given me a different idea of life. I can not be selfish now. I have learned the meaning of service and love for my fellowmen. Oh, Gene, if I could only be permitted to live the first part of my life over again! How I would help Mother and Laura Mae! They have come to mean so much to me. How can I ever make up to them for the way I acted?" she sobbed.

"There will be a way, I hope, for both of us to make amends," he said in all earnestness.

"I must hurry now, Gene," Martha said, "I have special work waiting for me to do tonight. I will see you again. Good night."

"Good night, Martha. "He gave her hand a friendly squeeze and smiled at her sadly. She was out of sight in an instant.

Gene sat staring off into the blackness of the night, thinking, thinking, about his sweet young wife and what she must be suffering all because of their love for each other. At length, he went back to John, who was absorbed in reading the newspapers from the roll his mother had sent to him. He looked up when Gene came near.

"Did you know her?" he asked, noting the worried look on Gene's pale face.

"Yes, I know her. She is my wife's sister," Gene answered.

"Any news from your wife? You look worried."

"Worried? Man, I have reason to worry."

"What has happened?" John was anxious. Anything that hurt Gene would hurt him, too.

"God, John, she is with child! Her father was so mean to her that she has left her home and no one knows just where she is. They think she has gone to her aunt in Denver." Gene looked older and more tired. The news added to the load that he was already forced to bear. He did not feel like talking, so the boys sat and read the newspapers from Kingsford in silence. In each paper, Gene turned to the column headed, "Oakdale News", hoping to see good news from home. He straightened, alarmed by what he read. The paper had been torn in that particular corner, but the heading was there in plain bold type: "Funeral Services help for Laura May Porter." The date was gone and as was the age of the person who had passed away, but he made out that she had come from Denver to the home of Eli Porter two days before, a sudden heart attack had caused her death.

Neither Laura Mae nor Martha in speaking of their Father's sister had ever mentioned her name to Gene, so when he read the name Laura May Porter, he could only believe the worst. His bride was dead! What she had been forced to bear had been too heavy a load for her, he concluded, and it was himself to blame! He sat dazed. John tried to rouse him, then he took up the paper Gene had been reading and knew that his friend's heart was breaking. There were things in life much harder to face than German's shots and shells. How he wished he could say something, do something that would help, but he could not. He led his chum to their barracks, where they could be alone. All life and hope seemed to have died in Gene. If he ever needed his friend, it was now and John knew it. Gene wished that he was back at the front so he could be killed in battle. He had nothing to live for now. If he could die, too, maybe they could be together over there without anyone to interfere. He resolved to write no more letters to his Uncle or anyone else in Oakdale. He would be lost to the United States that lay across the Atlantic Ocean. He could never go back home and live without his pretty wife there to love and work for. "How unkind fate has been to Laura Mae and me," he thought as he turned and tossed on his cot, trying hard to sleep, but sleep could not come to him. His mind was too busy thinking all that had happened in a few short months.