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Show THE PROGRESSIVE OPINION Rlrl See Private Here, Hargrove! Ha Marion Hargrove s?-- , tf&u THE STORY SO FAR: Private Marion Hargrove, former newspaper feature editor has been inducted Into the army and has spent some time in training at Fort Bragg. In his advice to prospec-tive selectees, Private Hargrove had advocated a period of "painting the town red." Once in the army he thinks "an open mind" is the best policy for the "first three weeks are the hardest." Some of the more fundamental phases of army life have gone over Private Hargrove's head and his conduct has landed him often on KP duty. He has been classified as a cook. Between his KP duty and his regular cook assignment he has spent considerable time in the kitchen. any originality at all, pick you out one special noncom and gripe about him. "Now, you take Private Hargrove, for instance. First came here, he griped about me telling him he was carrying his rifle wrong. Now he gripes when I tell him he's carrying it right. He might have something there. He still carries it like it was a gun. He's getting so shiftless, even at griping, that he can't find anything to beef about ex-cept not getting any mail. I'm going to write all his creditors, so he won't even be able to gripe about the mail." "That reminds me," I said. "Did I tell you boys what Sergeant Taylor told me about Ussery today?" "Nine o'clock!" Ussery shouted. "Lights out! Break it up!" - Ea-S- om ewhere on the wild coast of South Carolina, the battalion in which I cook is being treated to a weekend to combine business with pleasure. We can romp in the At-lantic while we get a "taste of the field." With the wind blowing the sand into kitchens" and pup tents alike, it will be nice to get back to CHAPTER VII One of the nicest things about working in the kitchen in Battery C of the 13th Battalion has been the knowledge that its number-on- e chow hound, Buster Charnley, would drop around after supper and the conver-sational fat. It's like a letter from home to listen to Buster's slow and mournful drawl, and his refreshing-ly dry humor is a pick-me-u- p at the end of a long, hot afternoon. Buster came prancing up the chow line, the other evening with a grin that started at the back of his head and enveloped his face from the nose down. "What's eating you, Walter," I asked him, "besides that g grin?" "Leaving here, boy!" he sang. "You won't see me around for three months. And when you see me, son, you'll see stripes on my sleeves and a look of prosperity on my clean-cu- t Tarheel face!" The man behind him wanted to get to the mashed potatoes, so Buster had to move on down the line, I got the whole story from one of the kaypees while I waited for him to make his evening call. Of the d men in Battery C, two men had been selected for three months' training at Fort Sill, Okla-homa. At the end of their three months, they will come back as gun-nery instructors, with a officer's rating and a spe-cialist's extra pay on top of that. Mrs. Walter Charnley's little boy Buster was one of the two men selected. I was chopping kindling for break-fast when Buster came around again, and I painted Fort Sill as a nest of jack rabbits, gophers, and rattlesnakes and assured him that N Battery C was sending him to school to cut down the grocery bills. If 'we hadn't been insulting each other in a friendly fashion for years, I would have told him that I wasn't particularly astonished and that I was sure he'd make a good instruc-tor and the kind of noncommis-sioned officer the boys borrow mon-ey from. Battery C will miss Ole Buster while he's away. The cooks' will miss him because he always re-members to compliment them when he likes the meat loaf or the cherry ers and betters. In the second place, don't argue with me. In the third place, don't fidget in the first place. And In the fourth place, don't agi- tate me unnecessarily. I'm at the end of my patience with you and I ain't feeling in no holiday spirit anyway." I buttoned the handsome winter blouse and he stepped back to in-spect it with the eye of an artist.' "Every time my wife gets mad at me, she has her picture taken to send to me. The picture I got to-day showed she's going to eat my heart out unmercifully when I can't put off my furlough any longer and I have to go home. And with do-mestic difficulties on my hands, I have, to fit your winter uniforms." He yanked at my coattail, straight-ened the collar and scratched his head. "Hargrove 37 long," he yelled to the boy at the desk. "Man that is born of woman," I comforted him, "is of many days and full of trouble.", "Git off the platform and into this overcoat," he sighed. He held the coat while I got into it and ha slapped my hand for fidgeting again. "Sometimes I wonder why I go to so much trouble keeping you boys dressed right. Here I spend the whole afternoon wiping sweat out of my eyebrows, just to see that your clothes fit you and you won't look like a bunch of bums which you are. "Do you know what some ungrate-ful kitchen termite said the other day? He started putting it around that the Army could double itself in half n hour by filling up the extra space in its trousers. Do your trou-sers fit you bum?" He straightened the pleats in the back of the over-coat and gave the tail an unneces-sarily vicious yank. "Did I say they didn't?" I groaned, raising my arms despair-ingly. "Just because somebody else says you stretch the coat in the back so the man will think it fits right in the front, you have to go picking on me!" "Me pick on you?" he screamed. "It's a wonder my nerves ain't com-pletely shot! Do I come around and' put signs on the door saying, 'Walk Up One Flight and Save Five Do-llars'? Do I throw gunny sacks on your bed and ask you to take up the cuffs two inches? "With my thankless job, it's a wonder I haven't collapsed before this. I wish I was a permanent kitchen police instead of a supply sergeant. Hargrove 37 long! NEXT!" -E- a- "This battery is my baby," Cor-poral Henry Ussery said, loosening his belt for a real bull session. I've watched it grow from thutty-on- e men to what it is now. It was hard work building up this battery to what it is now, but it's worth it when you look around and see what you've done." The assembly sighed en masse and decided to loosen its belts. Us-sery was wound up again. "When I got here, there wasn't anybody here but the instructors. We spent four weeks eating dust and running rabbits. There I was I'd spent thutteen months learning the old drill and tactics to where I reckon I had it down better than any man in the whole Army. Then they started this 'minute Army,' with a bunch of green ignorant Yan-kees and I had to teach them what they had to know!" At night we sleep, or simulate sleep, in pup tents made by our otto hands with loving care. Fort Bragg for a taste of the food we eat. A vexed soldier here doesn't grate his teeth. He crunches them. We made the trip here in lorries, which are the mechanical age's nearest approach in appearance to covered wagons. You've probably seen them rolling noisily but smoothy through town large canvas-- topped trucks with a fold-ing bench down each side inside. You'd expect to be hauled out of one of them, beaten to death, at the end of a trip. They give a tolerably bumpy ride, just tolerably. When we started pitching camp, about a quarter of a mile back from the beach, we found the place al-ready inhabited by cannibals. These creatures, which masquerade as harmless flies and even camou-flaged by the harmless sounding name of sand flies, must have vam-pire blood back in the line some-where. I don't bear any grudge against the easygoing, d house fly in fact, I feel rather cruel when I squash one for tickling me but it arouses my pioneer fighting spirit to see a stunted horsefly light on my bare leg, make himself sassily com-fortable and start draining off my life's blood. But what can you do? Slapping one only serves to make him mad at you. At night we sleep, or at least we simulate sleep, in pup tents made bv our own hands with loving care, ' "Leaving here, boy,' he sang; "You won't see me around for three months. Then I'll be wearing stripes on my sleeves." cobbler. The mess sergeant will miss him because he livens the kitchen when it comes his turn to do kaypee. The boys will miss him because he's one of the best-Ike- d boys there. ' One of the sergeants near here came back from a recent leave with one of the most glorious shiners that ever darkened the human eye. "Hun into a door?" I asked him. "Gave a guy the wrong answer," he replied simply, "or rather, the answer he didn't want." I looked at his face; his teeth were all there and his jaw was still in one piece. I looked at his hands; the knuckles showed the marks of , service. "I was at a party," he went on, "when this fellow who lives next door to my folks wants to know 'how's the morale in the Army?' 'Excellent,' I tell him; 'excellent!' He looks me up and down sort of pitying-lik- e and wants to know don't I read the magazine stories about how poor it is. Well, I tell him, 'I spend all my time with the boys and I believe what I see more than what I read.' "He goes on from there making cracks at the Army and the country and the suckers we are for giving our time for what's not worth flght-- ' ing for in the first place. I listen politely for a while, because even though I'm not in uniform I don't want to look rowdy. I stand as much as I can and then I ask him to his feet. It isn't long before his three brothers join the fight. It was one of the brothers put his finger ring in my eye." "Brother," I told him, "that ain't a black eye. That's a badge." "I lost the fight," he said. "You won the argument, though," I told him. "I'd like to use the sergeant's name, but he made me promise not I to." "I told the Old Man," he said, !' "that I got the shiner playing base-ball." I f- a- "How can I fit you into a coat," ', moaned Supply Sergeant Israel, j "with you fidgeting around like a race horse at the post? Stand still, ',) dern you, stand still!" ' "Heavens to Betsy, Thomas," I ' complained, "you're getting to be the fussiest old maid in the outfit. I'm not squirming!" "In the first place, my man," he said, "don't call me Thomas or try to get overly familiar with your cld- - The bull session nodded wisely and Corporal Ussery went on. "Now, this young Corporal Joe Gantt, for instance. Now, this Corporal Gantt, when he first came in, was one of the greenest rookies in the bunch. But he snapped out of it and made corporal in four months." "Was that soldiering," a voice broke in, "or handshaking as the Latins used to say, mittus flop-pus- "Much as I can't stand Gantt, I'll have to admit it was soldiering. That's the way it is. You sweat your head off hammering the drills and the calisthenics and the military courtesy and guard duty and the physical hygiene and the manual of arms into them. They're all clumsy and awkward as a bear in an egg crate at first, but then you can see them, after a while, snap-ping into it and getting better and better. By the time we've had them thutteen weeks, and they're ready to be assigned to their posts, they're as keen and alert as a bunch of West Point cadets. They're extra good cooks and better soldiers." "Isn't a good soldier a specialist at griping and growling?" somebody asked him. "When a soldier can gripe," the corporal announced in a pontifical manner, "he's happy as a pig in the sunshine. When he doesn't gripe, there's something wrong with him. That's another thing you learn. When you first came here, you didn't know the first principles of griping. You griped about the clothes; you griped about the beds; you griped especially about having to go to bed at nine o'clock." "Griping is an art, just like g is an art. Before you leave here, you learn that you don't enjoy griping a bit when you spread your energy all over everywhere, griping about everything. You learn to choose one thing and specialize m griping about that. "If you want to be a specialist at griping, you have to get on your toes You get to where your clothes are comfortable. Where you used to think the food was terrible, now you pretend that you don't get enough of it. You like the beds and by nine o'clock you're sleepy, bo you have to find something special -i- oe about. If you haven't got blood, sweat, tears, two pieces of waterproof cloth, two lengths of rope, and a handful of turned lum-ber. I share my little duplex with Pri-vate Warren, the new student cook who told me the story about the man at the boarding house. When I stumbled home last night, primed In the gills with a blend of sand and salt water, I discovered that we had an overnight guest! The chief cook on our shift, in the task of packing the field kitchen, had neg-lected to put his own field pack (tent half, blankets, etc.) on the truck, so he decided to drop over and have us put him up for the night. A pup tent, as you probably don't need to be told, will accommodate two men, provided neither of them walks in his sleep. If three men are to sleep in one tent, at least two of them must be midgets or babes In arms. Cooks should never sleep two to a tent, because of their tendency toward plumpness. We arranged ourselves in the tentv by wrapping knees around the tent poles, putting all feet outside for the night and raising one side of the tent high enough to make a rus-tic sleeping porch of the whole af-fair. The guest proved to be one of those loathsome creatures who pull all the covers to their side of the bed. We had quite a lot of trouble with him, since he slept in the middle and rolled up in both our blankets. We remedied this by wait-ing until he started snoring, then recovered our blankets, rolling our-selves in them and throwing a rain-coat over him. The three-ma- n arrangement was very uncomfortable for a while. When I finished opening my eyes by scoop-ing the sand from them, I found that I had rolled through the opened side of the tent and spent the night under . a myrtle bush ten yards down the slope. During my first off hour, I suc-ceeded in getting a tan which must have darkened the very marrow of my bones. My chest, back, and legs looked the color of a faded dan-ger flag and smelled like the roast pork that the cook forgot to watch. After that, the surf and the sun went their ways and I went min. (TO BE CONTTNUKDJ PATTERNS I COLDS' COUGHING in grandma's day was often treated with medicated mutton suet to relieve colda' coughing and muscle acheB. Now mothers just rub on Penetro. Modem medication in a base containing old fash-ioned mutton suet. Penetro works 2 ways (1) Vaporizes (2) Stimulates circulation where rubbed on. Stainless. Get Penetro. Due to an unusually large demand and current war conditions, slightly more time is required in filling orders for a few of the most popular pattern numbers. Send your order to: SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco Calif. Enclose 20 cents In coins for each pattern desired. Pattern No Size Name Address Happy Sailor CTART toy making early here's a doll which is easy even for beginners! First, make the 15- - inch body, soft and cuddly, then ) outfit with the gob cap, middy and sailor pants! i BY WEARING YOUR PLATES IVM DAT y w 4 HELD COMFORTABLY SNUG THIS WAY Face-line- s sag wrinkles form when plates remain un--J ""V worn. Avoid this hold plates firmly all day, every day with this "comfort-cushio- n' a dentist's formula, L Dr. Wernet's plate powder forms Recommendedbydentistsfor30years. soothing "comfort-cushio- between 3. Dr. Wernet's powder is economical; plate and gums lets you enjoy solid a very small amount lasts longer, foods, avoid embarrassment of loose 4. Made of whitest, costliest ingredient plates. Helps prevent sore gums. so pure you eat jt jn ice cream. 2. World'slargestsellingplatepowder. Pleasant tasting. All druggist 30i. Monty back If not delighted 1 mBommmmmmlmmtf Shoulder a Gun or the Cost of One jr Buy United States War Bonds Pattern Not 1897 is in one size only. Body requires yard sateen, 'a hank of wool for hair. Make costume of scraps. --"fftZTr-iiiii .Trunin .TTT.i..ur ' .!CTwo,Mg-;- -i are equipment for rCcV Vfr 'IK jeeps, I J&Sl fSfc&ii t- trucks and other V fcjVjV 'iM7ZP33j : military vehicles. f 'ygifilf.... lint n Sometimes peo- - PjT2 pie forget to repair old tire chains or to .3 tL r Trr- - get new ones be- - 'Zl ' fore they're need- - t ed. Then there's ;b . trouble. m SI fti F3 1? 51 FRES actu- - Uiay El YOUR TIRES! in snowdrifts or on icy roads. But you "burn 'em up" just the same. And tire chains will be hard to get this winter. So we suggest that you act at once to have your old chains recondi-tioned, and, if necessary, to secure new WEED TIRE chains. Essential civilian cars and trucks have first call on weed chains which are available after the needs of the armed forces have been supplied. . . . For the best buy in Tire Chains, ask for weed American bar reinforced. In these chains, every contact link is reinforced with a bridge of steel which assures much longer mileage. AMERICAN CHAIN DIVISIONjs York, Pa., Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Las Angeles, New York, rfH Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Francisco TitM? sj?. AMERICAN CHAIN & CABIE COMPANY, INC. Vbs) Bridgeport, Connecticut J Bmintss for Your Safety f IN THE ARMY AIR FORCES j f AWNPATROUING''ge;regreveffle t ''GET EAGER'' fr strive to do your best " i . . for letter h - "SUGAR REPORT , from a fr;end a" f for the favorite cigarette with men WT f in the Army i 'S CAMELS yTC U 1 ' , V HAVE GOT WHAT IT J & Of ' , f,' TAKES, ALL RIGHT LfTX f t S f PLENTY OF FLAVOR fh k I V AND EXTRA i Jfjtj: MILDNESS ii7 Yiy czd n FRST ,N THE service f f t i; 9 V 3 I I With men in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, I V jI f ' f t J ' i ad Coast Guard, the favorite cigarette is . tJ W V l .'"D j Camel. (Based on ial sales records.) Early Fountain Pens Fountain pens were in use earlj in the 17th century. News rfc BEHINDm THE INESip ByPAULMALLON J Released by Western Newspaper Union. PEOPLE 'CHANGING OVER' FROM ADMINISTRATION WASHINGTON. I asked a Ken-tuck-friend of mine who is the bes possible authority on the people il not the politics of the state, for an explanation of the astonishing suc-cess of a Republican gubernatorial candidate in that utmost stronghold of the administration since the be-ginning of the New Deal, the state which has two Democratic senators, one the administration leader in the senate. He replied: "The people are changing over. Jim Farley had it about right in his comment on the defeat of his Demo-cratic candidate in New York when he said the people were tired and dissatisfied with what they have been getting." The country, too, is changing over. The local results everywhere cannot be satisfactorily explained in any other way. The successful Kentucky Republi-can, Simeon S. Willis, is what is known in politics as "a good man." He is the elderly Kentucky gentle-man type, ' a former judge, honest, friendly. In the past, the far distant past, when the Republicans wanted to win that border state, they had to put in plenty of money. Willis had no money, at least not of that size. The big money people did not shell out for him, probably were not asked to. ADMINISTRATION WORRIED The administration rushed every one of its national powers from Kentucky into the threatened final breach. Senate Leader Barkley and the recently cantankerous Happy Chandler, spent the last three weeks before election on the formerly dark and bloody ground. Some Kentuck-ian-s hink this was a mistake, too. Mr. Roosevelt once spoke in Ken-tucky against Chandler in the early New Dealing days when Happy was trying to crash the gate of big league politics and establish the gu-bernatorial machine he has enjoyed up until last Tuesday. The Demo-cratic candidate was a Chandler man, J. Lyter Donaldson. Chandler is one of the senators who returned from a world tour re-cently, with advice for changes in administration world policy which were sharply and publicly rejected by the White House. When he and Barkley rushed back to Kentucky to get into bed together with Donaldson and call for uphold-ing the President, apparently they did not appear to a majority of the voters to be very fiarmonious bed-fellows, but rather just tentatively congenial. Donaldson has been de-scribed as an ordinary gubernatorial candidate. In view of this background, the explanation of Democratic National Chairman Frank Walker, that the scattered elections results did not involve national issues and had no national significance, was somewhat lacking, if not sad. The Republicans have won before, recently in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, but not by these lat-est majorities. The results indis-putably signify that the Republican trend, started in the losing Willkie race and two years later turned into nearly a Republican capture of the house, has now expanded even wid-er, continuing in the same direction. What was discernible elsewhere can now be said to be true even of Kentucky. The farm vote seems gone, labor split, and radicals (New York city, Detroit) have lost their g power. That leaves lit- - tie to work on. Whether the President's person-ality and unrivaled ingenuity can change this, I do not know. 1 al-ways thought war victory would re-store whatever prestige Mr. Roose-velt lost, but this now has gone pret-ty far. NO FOURTH TERM? I would say the scattered local election results have an unexpect-ed and the deepest possible signif-icance. They suggest to my mind for the first time that Mr. Roosevelt may not run for a fourth term. There is no better politician than 'Mr. Roosevelt. The reason he ran for the third term was because he thought he could win without as much opposition as he got. I doubt that he would choose to blotch his record or make a useless martyr of himself in a losing chance, but might prefer, perhaps, to head "an international organization" de-scribed in the Moscow agreements as a hope and expectation of the Big Four nations. That seems to be the real possi-bility now. $ S S WnAT STALIN MEANT Stalin's victory' speech gave peo-ple here a better understanding of the Hull - Stalin - Eden declarations than the generalized text of those documents. He implemented them, clearly, calmly, confidently. The impending victory, he said, had freed Russia, and he forecast freedom for conquered and occupied nations of Europe under govern-ments to be chosen by their own people, which would be his concep-tion of democracy. But he attributed victory prima-rily to his own collectivist-socialis- t system. He said the collectivism of Russian farms had proved to be a superior system, because it had fur-nished the necessary food. This collectivism is a pooling of land, im-plements, labor and harvest, a pure communism. Stalin left no vague-ness as to what he believes in, say-ing directly that the socialist state has been shown by this war to be the "form of organization" for both peace and war. This is natural, it represents no change. Just like us, he thinks his system is the best. l ASK MS O I i ANomen I A General Quiz j O-- C O" CV O" O p t - f c c The Questions 1. "Speak softly and carry a big stick" was the motto of what fa-mous man? 2. In what war did the Poles Kosciusko and Pulaski command American troops? 3. Our planes flying in the strat-osphere encounter what degree of coldness? 4: What is meant by a deckle-edge- d book? 5. What is gangue? 6. In what country is the kopeck a medium of exchange? 7. When did the Boston tea par-ty take place? 8. A ship's kitchen is called what? 9. George Washington died at what age? 10. Which of the metals employed by man has been the most useful and also the most abundant? The Answers 1. Theodore Roosevelt. 2. Revolutionary war. 3. Downward from 67 degrees below zero. 4. One whose pages are rough, untrimmed. 5. Rocks in which valuable met-als occur. 6. Russia. 7. The Boston tea party took place in 1773. 8. The galley. 9. Sixty-seve- 10. Iron. Groceryman Was Just Standing True to Form The village groceryman who was also an air-rai- d warden of long standing was very proud of the fact that his photograph had been published on the first page of the local newspaper. While he was showing it to" one of his customers, a rather formi-dable old lady, he detected a cer-tain lack of enthusiasm on her part, and said apologetically: "Of course, it's not a very good photo. I'm out of focus." "Yes," the old lady replied with a grim smile, "you're always out of something. You were out of string beans Tuesday and out of flour Friday!" |