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Show oo CHILDREN PART OF GREAT ARMY. Are the children to help win the war? Winifred Black answers in the affirmative. In an article which inspires in-spires hope, she says "Over in London they are going up I l !on the roof these days to listen to the thunder of the guns across the channel far away in France. "In Paris the school children are huddling together in the basements of the school houses waiting for the shells to drop, and while they wait lhe sine the Marsellni;'v "Over hero our children are listening, listen-ing, too, and singing but they do not wait. They work. "Tramp, tramp, tramp' Hark! 1 1 is the echo of thousands and hundr- d of thousands of sturdy younc feet, all marching to join the great nrnn of school gardens. From all parts of the country' they are coming, eager, enthu siaatic. full of determined hope and glowing loyalty. Rich and poor they come, boys and girls, from the kindergartens kinder-gartens and from the grammar grades. The United States war-gardou army already numbers up into the hundred thousands, and if the mllstmoni goes on as It has boqun it will not be long until 5.000.000 children are in the ranks. "The service pin have not hern ieni out from Washincton yet, but when they are that army is going to treble overnight. What boy or girl can resist re-sist belonging to the great army and wearing a pin which tells every passerby passer-by that under that pin there bents a patriotic heart? The children thought it was just goinc to be fun ni first, but now they realize that this United States war-garden army is jut as serious se-rious and just as important a part of our great fight as any branch of the government service. 'They are learning the salute, too. military fashion- shoulders back, head up. eyes right, palm outward I saw a link fellow in a racged coat draw himself him-self up like a major general the oiher day and salute an officer in khaki who swung past "Mechanically, the otfirrr - h LQd swept to his brow in thf answering salute, sa-lute, and then he paused, smiled, and turned back " 'What branch of thr service are you in. son" said the officer "The little ragamuffin threw up his grimy hand and saluted acaln United States war garden army,' he said. 'The service pins ain't here yet, but I belong to the army Just the same.' "Some hungry little boy over there In Belcium is going to have a good meal some day just because a little ragamuffin joined the army and saved food for his own folks here at home. "What a great time we live in and how bound together we all are with the close ties of love and fear. There arc no rich and poor these days no old and no young, no good and no bad, I had almost said. We are all just Americana, and the smallest child in the streets feels it and knows it just as the greatest man in the country' feels it and knows It." oo |