f the common thinking, feeling, suffering, praying, hoping people
of America. If these fail, all fails. If these lose faith and courage
and hope, all lose faith and courage and hope. If these grow
faint-hearted, all before them lose heart. These are they who furnish
the real sinews of war. These are they who must furnish the morale,
the love, the letters, the prayers, the support to both government and
soldier. Yes, the common folks over here at home, I have seen clearly,
are the most important part of the great division of the army that we
call "The Services of Supplies." May we never fail the boy in France.

These are the Silhouettes of Service.

VIII

SILHOUETTES OF SORROW

I wondered at his hold on the hearts of the boys in a certain hospital
in France. It was a strange thing. I went through the hospital with
him and it seemed to me, judging by the conversation with the boys in
the hundreds of cots, that he had just done something for a boy, or he
was just in the process of doing something, or he was just about to do
something.

They called him "daddy."

All day long I wondered at his secret, for he was so unlike any man I
had seen in France in the way he had won the hearts of the boys. I was
curious to know. Something in his eyes made me think of Lincoln. They
had a look like Lincoln in their depths.

That night when I was about to leave I blunderingly stumbled on his
secret. About the only ornament in his bare pine room in the hut was a
picture on the desk. I seized on it immediately, for next to a
sweet-faced baby about the finest thing on earth to look at is a boy
between five and twelve. And here were two, dressed in plaid suits,
with white collars, tousled hair, clean, fine American boys.

I exclaimed as I picked the picture up:

"What a fine pair of lads!"

Then I knew that I had, unwittingly, stumbled into his secret, for a
look of infinite pain swept over his face.

"They are both dead. Last August wife called me on the phone and said
that something awful had happened to the boys. They were all we had,
and I hurried home.

"They had gone out on a Boy Scout picnic. The older had gone in
swimming in the river and had gotten beyond his depth. The younger
went in after him and both were drowned."

"I'm sorry I brought it back," I said humbly.

He didn't notice what I said, but went on.

"Wife and I were broken-hearted. There didn't seem much to live for.
We had lost