Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1918 — SOLDIER THE 7TH [ARTICLE]

SOLDIER THE 7TH

By DOROTHY DOUGLAS.

(Copyright, IMS, by McClure Newspaper " Syndicate.) Lucinda purled -the last row on her seventh sleeveless sweater. Six of the'boys she had grown up with already had their warm khaki sweaters “somewhere in France,” and this seventh one she would send to John Watson. When it was finished, Lucinda put a suggestion of sachet in the woolly folds. It would remind John of femininity. She felt sure he, would like that familiar scent Also she tucked In some chocolate and many packages of his favorite cigarettes. Her letter was long and gossipy. Lucinda tried, in all her letters to the soldier boys, to give 'them a touch of home; a feeling that they were still near and dear to her and a part of the daily life at home. It seemed an unusually long time t before she heard from France. She supposed John’s regiment had. gone into action. Perhaps that was thfe delay. But when word came from the sweater it was in another handwriting than that of John Watson. Lucinda’s fair head dropped forward and she shook with terrific sobs. John was the first of her seven brave fighting friends to fall in battle. When her tears permitted her to continue the letter she found the contents peculiarly touching. He, the soldier who had written it, was John’s closest pal. They had stood side by side in the trenches. “ —and I wish the shell had taken me rather than John,” the letter ran. “He had much to live for, while I’m one of the lonely soldiers you read about. John has spoken of you to me and I know you’re the kind of girl that would want me to take the sweater you made for John. I need it badly and know he would want me to have it. The package came just after John fell. I read the letter and shared the cigarettes and chocolate with the rest of the boys. If you have a moment for a lonely soldier please write me as you would have John.”

She wrote back a long letter and sent more cigarettes and chocolate as well as wristlets and a helmet. She made minute Inquiry as to any special requirements he had and thanked him for the plots he had sent. While letters and messages were crdsslng the wide ocean Luelnda wrote a story that brought her In the biggest check she had received any magazine. The vivid bits of life that David McLeod, the seventh soldier, 4wtd sent her had added a strong touch of reality to her work. She wrote him of tfie success of the story and told him that she was putting half the check in a little bank. “When you come over to America after the war,” she wrote, “we will spend all your half of the check making you forget the tragedy of war. I am spending mine all on soldiers —doing just the little things that I can.” Lucinda and David continued their strange correspondence and found much pleasure in it. Her stories Improved wonderfully and the bank for the returning soldier became bulgy with checks. But the day came when Lucinda waited in vain for an ansWer to her letters. After long days of depression, when she had quite given up hope that David was one of the living heroes, she had a letter from a hospital In France. “They almost got me,” he wrote, “but I’m pulling through like a team of American- mules. Guess it takes more than a bunch of Boches to kill this globe trotter. I’m coming over to your country when my wounds are sufficiently healed to let me travel.” •• Lucinda put down her head again and cried. The tears were happy and might have sent tiny flowers springing up had they fallen on earthly gardens.

Her stories were decidedly happier now—the endings more complete. In the little bank a considerable sum hwaited David. Lucinda realized that It would take a lot of going to spend all that on inaklng David forget He had told her to look for a onelegged man when it came near time for his arrival, and when he stood outside her studio door Lucinda’ gasped with joy at his nearness. David had told her the exact date. His crutches for the second tore at her heart, for It meant that he had suffered and suffered dreadfully. “Here, here,” he said brusquely, wanting to hide his emotions. Tm a soldier with a grand medal—not a baby doll.” This was when Lucinda fluttered about doirig the thousand and one things an ultra-feminine woman must do for a soldier who has fought. She blushed hotly but continued, for in David’s eyes she read the hunger for mothering and home. She felt instinctively that her seventh soldier needed her more than any of -the others. In fact, Lucinda, felt many things —among them that her own need of David was going to be great She had written of so many fine men, but David embodied the finest of them all. She hoped desperately that he would fall in love with her. "We’ll write plays together and noyels and do all sorts of big things,” he said, voicing her very thoughts. “And some day, when you’ve used up all the plots we will globe-trot—for more. You see,” he added tenderly, “a lonely soldier gets a great chance when a, knitted sweater arrives.”