“East side, West side,All around the town,The tots sang ring-a-rosieLondon Bridge is falling down,Boys and girls together,Me and Mamie O’Rourke,We tripped the light fantasticOn the sidewalks of New York.
“East side, West side,All around the town,The tots sang ring-a-rosieLondon Bridge is falling down,Boys and girls together,Me and Mamie O’Rourke,We tripped the light fantasticOn the sidewalks of New York.
“East side, West side,All around the town,The tots sang ring-a-rosieLondon Bridge is falling down,Boys and girls together,Me and Mamie O’Rourke,We tripped the light fantasticOn the sidewalks of New York.
“East side, West side,
All around the town,
The tots sang ring-a-rosie
London Bridge is falling down,
Boys and girls together,
Me and Mamie O’Rourke,
We tripped the light fantastic
On the sidewalks of New York.
The last notes I heard as the tail of the dusty column swung around a bend in the road, were “Herald Square, anywhere, New York Town, take me there.” Good lads, God bless them, I hope their wish comes true.
June22nd, 1918
Our first day’s march brought us to Moyemont, our second a short hike to Moriville, where we are waiting to entrain at Châtel-sur-Moselle. I am billetted with the Curé and have sent Father McDonald, an old pupil of mine who has just been sent to me, to the 2nd Battalion. He is not well enough to stand what we will have to go through, so I have sent a telegram to Bishop Brent asking to have him kept for a time at some duty where he can regain his health.
Now I have to turn my attention to the Curé, who is also an invalid. He is living here in this big, bleak stonehouse, with an old housekeeper who is deaf, and the biggest, ugliest looking brute of a dog I have ever seen. He is run down and dispirited. We Americans don’t like that atmosphere so I started in to chirk him up. First I called in Dr. Lyttle, who pronounced the verdict that there was no reason why with rest and change and a new outlook on life he could not last for ten years.
Today is Sunday and I told the lads in church that I wanted a collection to give a poor old priest a holiday; and they responded nobly. For a second Mass I went down to McKenna’s town and found a new device, a green shamrock on a white background, over the door of his battalion headquarters. His is to be known as the Shamrock battalion of the regiment. After Mass and another collection I took breakfast with him. I had brought with me some money that Captain Mangan owed him. While I was at breakfast Mangan came in himself, and in his presence I handed the money over to McKenna. “If I didn’t have you around, Father, to threaten Mangan with hell-fire, I’d never get a cent of it.” “If you weren’t such a piker you wouldn’t keep a cent of it, now you’ve got it. You’d give it to Father Duffy for his poor old Curé.” “All right, I’ll give it, and double it if you cover it.” That meant forty dollars apiece for my nice old gentlemen. But McKenna was not satisfied. “Come on, Cassidy, come across,” and the Lieutenant with a smile on his handsome face came across with more than any Lieutenant can afford. McKenna shouted to the others, “Come all the rest of you heretics; you haven’t given a cent to a church since you left home,” and with a whole lot of fun about it, everybody gave generously. I could not help thinking what a lesson in American broadmindedness the whole scene presented. But the immediate point was that I was able to do handsomely for my old Curé. I went back to him, and from the different collections I poured into his hat in copper pennies, bits of silver, dirty little shin-plasters and ten franc notes, the sum of two thousand francs. He wasspeechless. The old housekeeper wept; even the dog barked its loudest.
“I’m giving you this with one condition,” I said. “Namely, that you spend it all at once.” “But ma foi! how can one spend two thousand francs in a short while. I never had so much money before in all my life.” “Of course you can’t spent it in this burg. I want you to go away to Vittel, to Nancy, to Paris, anywhere, and give yourself a good time for once in your life.” “But the Bishop would never permit it. He has few priests left and cannot supply the parishes with them.” “Well, he will have to do it if you’re dead, and you’ll be dead soon if you hang around here. Stay in bed next Sunday and have your parishioners send in complaints to the Bishop. Do that again the Sunday after, and by that time the Bishop will have to send somebody. Then you go off and spend that 2,000 francs on a summer holiday, and don’t come back until you have spent the last cent of it.”
The old gentleman gave a dazed assent to my entire scheme; but I am leaving here with little expectation that he will carry it all through. He may get a holiday from the Bishop, and he may spend a little of the money on it, but even if he lives for ten years I am willing to bet he will have some of our 2,000 francs left when he dies. In some ways it is a great handicap to be French.
June27th, 1918
On June 23rd we boarded the now familiar troop trains at Châte-sur-Moselle, and before we were off them we had zig-zagged our way more than half the distance to Paris, going up as far as Nancy, down to Neufchateau, northwest again by Bar-le-Duc, finally detraining on June 24th, at Coolus, south of Chalons-sur-Marne. We are now in five villages along the River Coole. We have left Lorraine at last and are in the province of Champagne. It isa different kind of country. The land is more level and less heavily wooded; the houses are built of a white, chalky stone with gray tiles instead of red; and with outbuildings in the rear of them—with the result (for which heaven be praised) that the dung heaps are off the streets. The inhabitants strike us as being livelier and less worried, whether from natural temperament or distance from the battle line, I do not know. The weather is beautiful and it is the joy of life to walk along the shaded roads that border the sleepy Coole and drop in on a pleasant company at mess time to share in their liveliness and good cheer. Today it was a trip to St. Quentin with the Machine Gun Company. Johnnie Webb and Barnett picked me up on the road and formed my escort, leading me straight to the kitchen, where Sergeant Ketchum and Mike Clyne were making ready for the return of the hungry gunners. Lieutenant De Lacour wanted me to go to Captain Seibert’s mess but I preferred by lunch on the grass with Milton Cohen, John Kenny, Ledwith, McKelvey, Murphy, Chester Taylor and Pat Shea. This is the kind of a war I like.
FOOTNOTES:[1]These men became confused and wandered into the German lines where they were made prisoners. Information concerning their fate came to us through the Red Cross about two months later, and both rejoined the regiment after the Armistice.
[1]These men became confused and wandered into the German lines where they were made prisoners. Information concerning their fate came to us through the Red Cross about two months later, and both rejoined the regiment after the Armistice.
[1]These men became confused and wandered into the German lines where they were made prisoners. Information concerning their fate came to us through the Red Cross about two months later, and both rejoined the regiment after the Armistice.