Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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8 PE ee OUR SA ods, there were no sorrow in the world. The little tugs puffed and panted up the bay, and a faint hum came from the giant shapes looming towards the sun. All around them the work was going on, work to accomplish, to achieve, to make things better, work side by side of all people and all races, towards one common end. Suddenly Heinie knew what he had not dared to put in words the night before. He could not go. He could not leave it all. His place was here, here among the people of his birth. Suddenly his words rushed out. “Meine mutter, mein vater, | cannot go. Even for you and Minna I cannot go. All my life I have lived here, and America she is my country. I would fight for her, I would give my life for her. She is my country; I cannot leave her.” The father looked at him bewilderedly. “Gott in Himmel, art thou mad?” “Mein vater I am not mad; I have known sice last night that America is my country. I cannot go.” His tone carried unquestionable convic- tion. The parents glanced at each other in sudden anxiety, and the mother laid a trembling hand upon his arm— “See, Heinie, I have lost two sons; but even that is not so hard to bear as that my youngest should be a traitor to the Vaterland. For the sake of your dead brothers, I ask you to come; for the sake of Rudolph and Gottlieb.” The long-unmentioned name of the dead was as startling as a sacrilege. “Meine mutter, I cannot.” Frank tears were dimming his gold-rimmed spectacles. He stumbled down the gangway and waved his handkerchief from the dock. No answering wave met him. He was cut off from the ship by a gulf deeper than the deepest part of the ocean that would soon lie between. As he stood on the dock, the world reeling beneath his feet, he became conscious that the newsboys were shouting with unusual animation in their hoarse voices. With an effort he drew his mind back from the vanishing ship and listened. “Extry! Extry! Congress declares war with Germany at last The world slowly righted itself. Heinie knew at last that he was right; that though he had lost parents, love, all that had made his life, he had gained a country, a country that was his to love, serve and defend for ever. With his eyes on the beautiful harbor that he loved, he murmured from the depths ot a loyal heart, “Mein Vaterland.” ?

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IEE Osher Coles N father. Run; child, and let him in. I go to bring the supper,’ and she hobbled off-on her tired feet. ee “Heinie has a letter from Minna today,” she remarked when they were all seated round the red table cloth. “He is happy tonight.” Heinie de- voted himself to his wienerwurst, and his bulbous ears grew red. The father chuckled, “Rudie should hear that.” “Ja, Rudie laught always at Heinie. Such a boy he is, Rudie! How he looks at you with his great eyes! Dost thou remember, Hans, how he was always marching, marching, marching, and now he is a fine, big sol- dier? But someone rings! Run quickly, Heinie!”’ “Tt is a letter, meine mutter!” “Das liebe Gott! Give it to me quickly. It is perhaps news of Rudie!”’ She was tearing at the envelope with her clumsy, toil-worn fingers. Heinie waited, swallowing a great lump in his throat, while her near-sighted eyes traveled slowly down the paper. Mechanically she turned a page, and then raised a gray, lifeless mask, the skin of the cheeks drawn tight around its staring eyes. Heinie looked at the papers. They were blackened, and he saw a ragged hole through them and brown stains on the inside ones. Suddenly her hands went up. “Oh, my Rudie, my tall, my strong, my boy, he’s dead, he’s gone, oh, Rudie, my son! my son! my son!” Through that night Heinie lay awake in the next room and always that hoarse moaning. Toward dawn his father came out of the room with haggard face. “We will go back to the Vaterland tomorrow, my son. You will buy the tickets and make all ready.” He went back, closing the door softly behind him. Heinie lay awake. Outside, the paper boys were calling shrilly: “Extry! Extry! Another American ship sunk! Congress calls spe- cial session! Extry! Extry” He listened dully. Tomorrow he would be on the big German liner bound for the fatherland, of which he had been told ever since he was old enough to understand the word. Ten days from tomorrow he would stand on German soil, he would see his mother’s home, his brothers’ graves—the Kaiser! Yes, he would see the Kaiser, but he would not see his little shop dear to him through years of work, or hear the cheery greeting of the young policeman on the corner: “Morning’, Dutch!” He would not see again America, “the land that makes room for all peoples.” Well, it is growing light; he must get his tired bones out of bed and see about those tickets. That afternoon, the three stood on the deck of one of the foreign- bound steamers. In one night the hands of the little mother had lost all their well-known knobby redness, and looked curiously fragile and unreal as they clung to the big father’s arm. Heinie stood beside her, his round, red face aged twenty years. Around them the blue water sparkled as if

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THE ORACLE 9 Just A Dog (As told by Harry Stevens, Winner of the First Marsh Prize.) How Laddie got there, Larry, the little Cockney, never knew, but when -the regiment got off the troop train to start off on its long march to the front, a thin, gaunt little mongrel came sidling up to Larry, its small piece of tail wagging for all it was worth. “Hi say,” said Larry, to one of his companions, “this ’ere bloomin’ little blighter was tied fast to ’is kennel when hi left, now look at ’im hup ’ere. “You young rat,” to the dog, “’Ow did you get ’ere anyhow?” The dog just wagged its tail and jumped at Larry’s face. After Larry had made the dog understand that he did not want his face washed, he opened his tin of bully-beef and gave some to the half-starved dog. Then the order to get ready was passed along, and soon the long column of soldiers was marching down the dusty road, a cloud of dust hanging over them. After hours of tedious marching with Lad, as Larry called him, plod- ding along beside him, they could, now and then, hear the far-off rumble of the big guns as they sent their missiles of death and destruction into the opposing line. Then they began to meet remnants of regiments marching back from the front, some with faces haggard and worn, and others with bandages wrapped around them, as Larry said, to keep them together. From these they got the news of the battle in which they were soon to take part. Both sides had incurred heavy losses, but neither had the advantage. At dusk they finally reached a place where, at command, the line was halted and the men were passed out their small amount of rations, which larry divided with his dog. After conversing by their fires awhile, the tired men unrolled their blankets, and one after another dropped off to sleep with the rumble of guns in their ears. Larry was no exception to this rule, for with Lad tucked in beside him in his roomy blanket, he soon showed that a little Cockney can snore just as loud as anyone. At the first streak of dawn the bugles awoke the men, and, after a light breakfast, they were soon in marching order. As they tramped along the sound of the guns crept nearer and nearer until the sharp rattle of machine guns could be heard. Then they heard the scream of a spent shell as it passed over their heads, and they knew they were getting near their destination. .