Biltmore Oswald Part 14

CHORUS

"The sailors I have ever loved. I'm glad my lad's a gob, Although it seems to me he's much too dumb.

But after all perhaps he isn't such an awful slob-- I always knew that Kaiser was a b.u.m!"

_Aug. 9th._ The best way to make a deserter of a man is to give him too much liberty. For the past week I have been getting my dog Fogerty on numerous liberty lists when he shouldn't have been there, but not contented with that he has taken to going around with a couple of yeomen, and the first thing I know he will be getting on a special detail where the liberty is soft. I put nothing past that dog since he lost his head to some flop-eared huzzy with a black and tan reputation.

_Aug. 10th._ All day long and a little longer I have been carrying sacks of flour. The next time I see a stalk of wheat I am going to snarl at it. This new occupation is a sort of special penance for not having my hammock lashed in time. It seems that I have been in the service long enough to know how to do the thing right by now, but the seventh hitch is a sly little devil and always gets me. I need a longer line or a shorter hammock, but the only way out of it that I can see is to get a commission and rate a bed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I CARRIED ALL THE FLOUR TO-DAY THAT WAS RAISED LAST YEAR IN THE SOUTHERN SECTION OF THE STATE OF MONTANA"]

I carried all the flour to-day that was raised last year in the southern section of the State of Montana, and I was carrying it well and cheerfully until one of my pet finger nails (the one that the manicure girls in the Biltmore used to rave about) thrust itself through the sack and precipitated its contents upon myself and the floor. A commissary steward when thoroughly aroused is a poisonous member of society. One would have thought that I had sunk the great fleet the way this bird went on about one little sack of flour.

"Here Mr. Hoover works hard night and day all winter," he sobs at me, "and you go spreading it around as if you were Marie Antoinette."

I wondered what new scandal he had about Marie Antoinette, but I held my peace. My horror was so great that the real color of my face made the flour look like a coat of sunburn in comparison.

"There's enough flour there," he continued reproachfully, pointing to the huge mound of stuff in which I stood like a lost explorer on a snow-capped mountain peak and wis.h.i.+ng heartily that I was one, "there's enough flour," he continued, "to keep a chief petty officer in pie for twenty-four hours."

"Just about," thought I to myself.

"Well," he cried irritably, "pick it up. Be quick. Pick it up--all of it!"

"Pick it up," I replied through a cloud of mist, "you can't pick up flour. You can pick up apples and pears and cabbages and cigarette b.u.t.ts for that matter, but you can't pick up flour."

The commissary steward suddenly handed me a piece of paper upon which he had been writing frantically.

"Take this to your P.O.," he said shrilly, "and take yourself along with it.

"A defect in the sack," I gasped, departing.

"And there's a defect in you," he shouted after me, "your brain is exempted."

"Take this man and kill him if you can find any slight technical excuse for it," the note ran, "and if you can't kill him, give him an inapt.i.tude discharge with my compliments, and if you are unable to do either of these two things, at least keep him away from my outfit. We don't want to see his silly face around here any more at all."

The P.O. read it to me with great delight.

"I guess we'll have to send you to Siberia after all," he said thoughtfully, "only that country is in far too delicate a condition for you to meddle with at present. Go away to somewhere where I can't see you," he continued bitterly, "for I feel inclined to do you an injury, something permanent and serious." I went right away.

_Aug. 11th._ Mother has just paid one of her belligerent visits to the camp, and as a consequence I am on the point of having a flock of brainstorms. Some misguided person had been telling her about the Officer Training School up here, and she arrived fired with the ambition to enter me into that inst.i.tution without further delay.

True to form, she bounded headlong into the matter without consulting my feelings by accosting the very first commissioned officer she met.

He happened to be an Ensign, but he might as well have been a Vice-Admiral for all Mother cared.

"Tell me, young man," she said to this Ensign, going directly to the point, "do you see any reason why my boy Oswald should not go to that place where they make all the Ensigns?"

"Yes," said the officer firmly, "I do."

"Oh, you do," snapped Mother angrily, "and pray tell me what that reason might be?"

"Your son Oswald," replied the Ensign laconically.

"What!" exclaimed Mother, "you mean to say that my Oswald is not good enough to go to your silly old school?"

"No," replied the Ensign, weakening pitifully before the withering fury of an aroused mother, "but you see, my dear madam, he has not a first cla.s.s rating."

"Fiddlesticks!" said Mother.

"Crossed anchors," replied the Ensign.

"I didn't mean that," continued Mother, "I think the whole thing is very mysterious and silly, and I'm not going to let it stop here. You can trust me, Oswald," she went on soothingly. "I am going to see the Commander of the station myself. I am going this very instant."

"But, Mother," I cried in desperation, tossing all consequences to the wind, "the 'skipper' isn't on the station to-day. He got a 43-hour liberty. I saw him check out of the gate myself."

For a moment the Ensign's jaw dropped. I watched him anxiously. Then with perfect composure he turned to Mother and came through like a little gentleman.

"Yes, madam," he stated, "your son is right. I heard his name read out with the liberty party only a moment ago. He has shoved off by now."

I could have kissed that Ensign.

"Well, I'm sure," said Mother, "it's very funny that I can never get to the Captain. I shall write him, however."

"He must have an interesting collection of your letters already," I suggested. "They would be interesting to publish in book form."

"Anyway," continued Mother, apparently not attending to my remark, "I think you would look just as well as this young man in one of those nice white suits."

"No doubt, madam," replied the Ensign propitiatingly, "no doubt."

"Come, Mother," said I, "let's go to the Y.M.C.A. I need something cool to steady my nerves."

"How about your underwear?" said Mother, coming back to her mania, in a voice that invited all within earshot who were interested in my underwear to draw nigh and attend.

"Here, eat this ice cream," I put in quickly, almost feeding her.

"It's melting."

But Mother was not to be decoyed away from her favorite topic.

"I must look it over," she continued firmly.

It seemed to me that every eye in the room was calmly penetrating my whites and carefully looking over the underwear in which Mother took such an exaggerated interest. "Socks!" suddenly exploded Mother. "How are you off for socks?"

"Splendidly," I said in a hoa.r.s.e voice. A girl behind me snickered.

"And have you that liniment to rub on your stomach when you have cramps?" she went on ruggedly.

"Enough to last through the Fall season," I replied in a moody voice.

I didn't tell her that Tim the barkeep had tried to drink it.