Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1909 — ORDERED HOME. [ARTICLE]

ORDERED HOME.

I have heard the bullets whistle, I have seen the bolo kill, I have heard the war tribes chanting from their outposts on the hill, I know the plagae -mell of Manila and the Chino's wily way, And what it means to be a soldier here for 'SO cents a day, But my heart is sad and weary, and I wish some one would say, “There’s a transport in the harbor, and your ordered home to-day." I’ve seen the Moro in the palm grove, murder shining in his eye; Heard my “bunkie" calling “mother” as he’s lying down to uie; Seen the fateful mark o “Black Death” on the man just gone along; Felt tne hot breath of a leper In a panic-stricken throng. So the “Wanderlust” has left me, and I wish that I com- say, “There’s a transport In the harbor, and your ordered home to-day.” I have seen the Pasig boatman in his casco floating by. And the muddy, reeking waters where the Spanish warships lie; I have slept in running rivers, I’ve hiked up burning hills, I have sat, and shook and shivered with the fever and the chills. AH- the Oriental jewels for these simple words I'd pay: “There’s a transport in the harbor, and your ordered home to-day.” Hark! I hear the siren moaning out beyond Corregidor! It’s a gray old army troopship coming from the homeland shore, And It’s calling, softly calling me, to come across the sea, Where a mother and a sweatheart long and look and wait for me; And my soldier days are over, and I need no longer stay—- " There's a transport in the harbor, and I'm ordered home to-day!"