ng to was over in France last Christmas,
and he told me all about the time they had. Seems queer, but I think
it is so. He said almost every fellow in the outer trench had some
sort of a Christmas box with fruit-cake and candles, and 'sweets' as he
calls candies. There they were, wishing each other a merry Christmas,
and shaking hands, and laughing, and the snipers' guns popping away at
the Germans a few feet away from them. Pretty soon a white flag went
up in the enemies' trench, and they ran one up, too, and stuck up their
heads to see what was what. They didn't know if it was a ruse or not;
but there was a group of Germans sitting on the edge of their trench
with their legs down inside ready to jump; and they were calling 'Merry
Christmas, Englishmen!' as jolly as you please.

"Well, that was all our fellows needed, and they got out of their holes
and advanced. But one of their officers went first, a young fellow who
was pretty homesick on account of the day, and he went up to a big
German officer, and they agreed that there should be a truce for the
day, and shook hands on it. So the men came across and met, and tried
to talk to each other and learned some words from each other. The
Germans had Christmas boxes, too, and they swapped their funny pink
frosted cakes for the English fruit-cake, and gave each other cigarette
cases and knives for souvenirs.

"Then it came dinner time, and they brought their stuff out on the
neutral ground, and ate it together. Then pretty soon they all went
back to their own trenches, and commenced singing to each other. The
English sang their Christmas carols, old as the hills of England; and
the Germans boomed back their songs in their big, deep voices. I tell
you, fellows, it must have been queer! Just before dark, the German
lieutenant stood up once more, with his white flag, and the English
officer went to meet him. The German talked pretty fair English and
the men heard what he said.

"'We have a lot of dead men here to bury,' he explained. 'Will you
come and help us?' So the English said yes, and they all came out
again and helped to bury the fellows they had shot. Then they all
stood together, and the German officer took off his helmet and
everybody took off their caps, and the German officer looked down at
the graves, and then up, and he said, 'Hear us, Lieber Gott,' and the
fellow said he must have thought his English was not good enough to
pray in; so he said