Torchy and Vee

e. But the last young lady typist they'd wished on me must have eased in on the job with a diploma from some hair-dressin' establishment. She got rea

' to retrieve it. So with four or five more folios to do on a report I was makin' to the

ormer, but I thought you might have one of the old guard left; o

canteen work, he's been having a poor time keeping up his office force. "Do you know, Torchy," says

eyes. She glides in willowy, drapes herself on a chair, pats her home-grown ear-muffs into shape, and unfolds her note book business-like. And inside of two minutes she's doing

until I gets to this paragraph where I mentions Camp Mills, and the ne

her. "Have I been feedi

hat's where Stub is-Camp Mil

d Stub is a broth

in' out her left hand and displayin

ce pin, you understand, when some wears 'em for seco

durin' business hours. I wouldn't of either, only I had another sess

g it hard, is

what I ain't strong for Stub Mears myself. He's all right, Stub is, even if he never could qualify in a beauty competition with Jack Pickford or Mr. Doug. Fairbank

case where Congress ought to stop and draw a long breath. Uh-huh! She's 100 per cent. mother, Mrs. Mears is, and it looks like

hat away about this war romance of hers. Seems Mr. Mears could have been in Class B, on account of his widowed mother and him being a plum

uch like important social events. But there'd been other fellers. Two or three. And one had a perfectly swell job as manager of a Unit

it. It's in the blood, you might say, for I had an uncle in the Spanish-American and a grandfather in the Civil War. So when Mr. Mears tells me how, when it

berty bond button, but backin' his fallen arches to keep him exempt, I gives him the cold eye. 'Nix on the coo business, Mister Horwitz,'

then, and we'd be doin' the Sunday afternoon parade up and down the block, with all the girls stretchin' their necks after us. Y

s she, wavin' a picture post card at me, 'he's been appointed on the K. P. squad again.' Honest, she thinks he's something like a Knights of Pythias and goes marchin' around important with a plume in his hat and a gold sword. Mothers are easy, ain't they? You can bet though, that Stub don't try to buffalo little old me with anything

d in a wheel chair. Ain't that fierce? And she was mighty nervy about sendin' Stubby off. Wouldn't let him say a word about exemption. No, sir! 'Never mind me, Edgar,

goin' to be reco'nized proper-Well, I don't debate that with her at all. For one thing I don't get just exactly what she wants; whether it's for the President to write her a special letter of thanks, or for Mr. Baker to make Stubby a captain or something right off. Anyway, she don't feel that Edgar's

? Oh, I couldn't

you help out a little? She's an old lady, you know, and

reaks in. "I'd d

Casey. She's no easy quitter, that young lady. Having let me in on her little affair, she seems to think it's no more'n right I should be kept posted. A day or so la

"Looks kind of swell i

army buttons are sewed on tight or else a good snappy salute would wreck him

can fight like he can eat, good-night Kaiser Bill. But at that th

reat life

im before they risk loadin' him on a transport. That's all I got against t

stallin' along that line for a week or more until the forenoon when Vee blows in u

soon as I give two more

I comes back from a ten-minute interview with Old Hickory I finds Vee and Miss Casey chattin' away lik

ays Vee. "Isn't that a shame, Torchy

off, addin' the co

the company Captain Woodhouse com

" says I. "I'd mo

up on the long distanc

ase and he regrets to report that Private Mears's record isn't a good one; three times in the guar

engaged, you know. Such a nice girl. And then there is his poor old m

courage my little campaign, and although he quit and picked another several years ago I don't suppose he minds bein' called Woodie by Vee, even now. Anyway, after consultin' one of h

in for a fond clinch act with Miss Casey. As it is she

hat grand! And believe muh, I mean to work up some lit

Vee. "And Torchy, you mu

major," says

from the front. "What do you know?" says I. "Miss Casey has a hunch that she might organize a bl

is a block party, T

r, too. They get all the people in the block to chip in for a celebration-decorations, music, ice

says Vee. "And that is jus

'em with "Room to Rent" signs hung out and little basement shops tucked in here and there. Maybe you know the kind-the asphalt always littered with paper, garbage cans left out, and swarms of kids playin' tip-cat or dashin' about on roller skates. Cheap and messy. And to judge by the nam

more blue stars in evidence than you'd find on any three brownstone front blocks down on Madison or up in the Seventies. One flag had four, and none of 'em stood for butler

ny kind of a celebration or not was another ques

-five. And, say, I got a cousin in the Knights of Columb

pped in a ten and told us about his boy Herman, who'd been made a corporal and was at Chateau Thierry. Inside of three hours we'd made a sk

says Vee, when I tells her ab

nd watch her work up the enthusiasm. She's some breeze, she is. When I left

ave had a busy week, but she don't lay down once on her reg'lar work nor beg for any time off. All

iss it for any

urse, I wasn't sure just how Vee would take it gettin' mixed up in a mob like that, but I was ba

ow was draped and decorated with bunting. Then there was all kinds of flags, from little ten centers to big twenty footers swung across the street. There was a whackin' big Irish flag loaned by the A. O. H.; two Italian flags almost as big; I don't know how many French tri-colors and some I couldn't place; Czecho-Slovaks maybe. And besides the la

t like the Mardi

ould say Miss Casey has put over the real thi

Sure enough, it is. Not much to look at, she ain't; sort of humped over, with a shawl 'round her shoulders. But say, when you got a glimpse of the way her ol

. She's dancing with Edgar now, but they'll be back soon. Haven't see

ee. And then she whispers to me:

nch tams come bearin' down on us wavin' energetic and towin' along a red-faced young doughboy

I want you to meet one of the most prominent privates in the division, Mr. Mears. Come on, Stubby, pull

e. "I had no idea, Miss Casey, that y

ain't a block on the West Side has had anything up to this, from Houston Street up to the Harlem. That's goin' some, ain't it? You got here just in time for the big doin's, too. It's comin' off right no

ld is pulled out where the searchlight strikes it

"Not 217 from

any. But ther'd been one less if it hadn't been for Stubby, and everybody knows t

rough the piece. And a fat boy rolled out of a second-story window in the Princess flats, but caromed off on an awnin' and wasn't hurt. Also a few young hicks started some rough stuff when the ice-cream freezers were opened, but a

dimmin' up. "And to think that all

ivate wink. "Why not, I'd like to kn

ar," says Mrs. Mear

uine mother stuff?" whispers M

in a Long Island train for the ride home, "that

ver and tear what's left of Germany off the m