"The residents of the avenue paid fine tribute to the dusky
marchers. It seemed inspiring, at 65th Street, to see Mrs. Vincent
Astor standing in a window of her home, a great flag about her
shoulders and a smaller one in her left hand, waving salutes. And
Henry Frick, at an open window of his home at 73d Street, waving a
flag and cheering at the top of his voice.

"At the corner of 86th street was a wounded colored soldier
wearing the Croix de Guerre and the Victoria Cross as well. Colonel
Hayward pressed to his side with a hearty handshake, exclaiming:
'Why, I thought you were dead!' It was one of his boys long ago
invalided home.

"No, sir, Colonel, not me. I ain't dead by a long ways yet,
Colonel, sir,' said the lad.

"'How's it going, Colonel?' asked a spectator.

"'Fine,' said the Commander. 'All I'm worrying about is whether my
boys are keeping step.' He needn't have worried.

"The real height of the enthusiasm was reached when, after passing
through 110th street and northward along Lenox Avenue, the heroes
arrived in the real Black Belt of Harlem. This was the Home, Sweet
Home for hundreds of them, the neighborhood they'd been born in and
had grown up in, and from 129th Street north the windows and roofs
and fireescapes of the five and six story apartment houses were
filled to overflowing with their nearest and dearest.

"The noise drowned the melody of Lieut. Europe's band. Flowers fell
in showers from above. Men, women and children from the sidewalks
overran the police and threw their arms about the paraders. There
was a swirling maelstrom of dark humanity in the avenue. In the
midst of all the racket there could be caught the personal
salutations: 'Oh, honey!' 'Oh, Jim!' 'Oh, you Charlie!' 'There's my
boy!' 'There's daddie!' 'How soon you coming home, son?' It took
all the ability of scores of reserve policemen between 129th Street
and 135th Street, where the uptown reviewing stand was, to pry
those colored enthusiasts away from their soldiermen.

"There was one particular cry which was taken up for blocks along
this district: 'O-oh, you wick-ed Hen-nery Johnson! You wick-ed
ma-an!' and Henry the Boche Killer still bowed and grinned more
widely than ever, if possible.

"'Looks like a funeral, Henry, them lilies!' called