ing. He seemed to be whisked
away. One moment he was eating his breakfast at an unaccustomed hour, in
his best shirt and trousers, his mother, only half understanding even
now, standing over him with the coffee pot; the next he was standing
with his cheap shiny suitcase in his hand. Then he was waiting on the
depot platform, and Hefty Burke, the baggage man, was saying, "Where you
goin', Buzz?"

"Goin' to fight the Germans."

Hefty had hooted hoarsely: "Ya-a-as you are, you big bluff!"

"Who you callin' a bluff, you baggage-smasher, you! I'm goin' to war,
I'm tellin' you."

Hefty, still scoffing, turned away to his work. "Well, then, I guess
it's as good as over. Give old Willie a swipe for me, will you?"

"You bet I will. Watch me!"

I think he more than half meant it.

And thus Buzz Werner went to war. He was vague about its locality.
Somewhere in Europe. He was pretty sure it was France. A line from his
Fourth Grade geography came back to him. "The French," it had said, "are
a gay people, fond of dancing and light wines."

Well, that sounded all right.

The things that happened to Buzz Werner in the next twelve months
cannot be detailed here. They would require the space of what the
publishers call a 12-mo volume. Buzz himself could never have told you.
Things happened too swiftly, too concentratedly.

Chicago first. Buzz had never seen Chicago. Now that he saw it, he
hardly believed it. His first glimpse of it left him cowering,
terrified. The noise, the rush, the glitter, the grimness, the vastness,
were like blows upon his defenceless head. They beat the braggadocio and
the self-confidence temporarily out of him. But only temporarily.

Then came a camp. A rough, temporary camp compared to which the present
cantonments are luxurious. The United States Government took Buzz Werner
by the slack of the trousers and the slack of the mind, and, holding him
thus, shook him into shape--and into submission. And eventually--though
it required months--into an understanding of why that submission was
manly, courageous, and fine. But before he learned that he learned many
other things. He learned there was little good in saying, "Aw, g'wan!"
to a dapper young lieutenant if they clapped you into the guard-house
for saying it. There was little point to throwing down your shovel and
refusing to shovel coal if they clapped you into the guard house for
doing it; and made you shovel harder than ever when you came out. He