shoes and of clothing, farmers to till the soil of France, and doctors and nurses to tend its sick and wounded.  There was nothing which the skill and knowledge of a nation of a hundred million people had to offer that was not gathered into this vast encampment.  All the youngest and keenest were here, eager to do their part, laughing at danger, tingling with excitement, on tip-toe with curiosity and delight.  Jimmie Higgins, watching them, found his doubts melting like an April snow-storm.  How could any man see this activity and not be caught up in it?  How could he be with these laughing boys and not share their mood?

Jimmie himself had not had a merry childhood, he did not know the youth of his own country—­the breezy, slangy, rather shocking, utterly irrepressible youth of this democratic world.  If there was anything they did not know—­well, they did not know it; if there was anything they could not do—­their motto was:  “Show me!” Jimmie, not having been to school, found himself having a hard time with their weird slang.  When one of these fellows hailed you, “Hey, pimp!” it did not necessarily mean that he did not like you:  when he greeted you, “Hey, sweetness!” it did not mean that he felt for you any over-powering affection.  If he referred to his officer as “hard-boiled”, he did not have in mind that this officer had been exposed to the action of water at 212 degrees Fahrenheit; he merely meant that the officer was a snob.  When he remarked, “Good night!” in broad daylight, he meant you to understand that he disagreed with you.

He disagreed frequently and explosively with Jimmie Higgins, trying to point out a difference between the German rulers and the German people!  Such subtleties had no interest for these all-knowing boys.  When Jimmie persisted, they called him a “nut”, a “poor cheese”; they told him that he was “cuckoo”, that his “trolley was twisted”; they made whirling motions with their hands to indicate that he had “wheels in his head”, they made flapping motions over him to signify that there were “bats in his belfry”.  So Jimmie subsided, and let them talk their own talk—­imploring one another to “have a heart”, or to “get wise”, or to “make it snappy”, or to “cut out the rough stuff”.  And he would sit and listen while they sang with zest a song telling about what they were going to do when they got to France: 

Bring the good old bugle, boys, we’ll sing another song,
Sing it with a spirit that will move the world along,
Sing it as we love to sing it, just two million strong—­

              While we are canning the Kaiser.

Chorus: 

Oh, Bill!  Oh, Bill!  We’re on the job to-day! 
Oh, Bill!  Oh, Bill!  We’ll seal you so you’ll stay! 
We’ll put you up in ginger in the good old Yankee way—­

              While we are canning the Kaiser.

Hear the song we’re singing on the shining roads of France;
Hear the Tommies cheering, and see the Poilus prance;
Africanders and Kanucks and Scots without their pants—­

              While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus)