Funny Stories Told by the Soldiers

GERMAN PAPERS, PLEASE NOTE

The following is posted on the door of a deserted cabin in Coos County, Oregon:

“To whom it may concern:

“There’s potatoes in the wood-shed,
There’s flour in the bin,
There’s beans a-plenty in the cupboard,
To waste them is a sin.
Go to it neighbor if you’re hungry!
Fill up while you’ve a chance,
For I’m going after the Kaiser,
Somewhere over in France.

    “L. A. Johnson,
    ”Alias, Charley the Trapper.“

UNANIMOUS

We should like to print this story in letters of gold, says the London Tit-Bits. It is of a colonel on the British front who wanted twenty men to face almost certain death.

He called the whole company together and made the situation clear to them. Then he asked for twenty volunteers to advance one pace. He loved his men, and it was almost more than he could bear. He closed his eyes to keep back his tears, and when he opened them the men stood in exactly the same formation. He was pained.

“Is there not one volunteer?” he asked.

A sergeant stepped forward at salute. “Every one has advanced one pace, sir,” he said.

PA WAS THE GENERAL

The young subaltern, who was a son of a general and never omitted to rub in that fact, was taking a message from the general to the gunners.

“If you please,” he said to the major, “father says will you move your guns.” The major was in an irate mood. “Oh!” he rejoined, “and what the blazes does your mother say?”

TOUGH ON GOMPERS

Kerensky kissed Arthur Henderson, the British labor politician, as the American Labor Mission calls him, and all England gasped. Kerensky is coming to this country. He may want to kiss Secretary Wilson or even President Wilson. This has led an anonymous poet to suggest that the President put his greetings into a song, and to furnish him with the song, as follows:

“Salute me only with thy fist,
And don’t attempt to buss me;
The very thought of being kissed
Is quite enough to fuss me.
If you must kiss, try it on Gompers —
He hasn’t been kissed since he wore rompers.”

HAD THE RIGHT DOPE

The more things the draft officials do to baseball here the better it flourishes in London, according to Richard Hatteras, of that thriving community, who was recently in New York. Mr. Hatteras says the game is getting a firm hold on every nationality in the British capital.

“Why, recently,” quoth he, “I saw a game in which East Indians were playing. One of these approached the plate at a crucial moment and cried aloud:

“‘Allah, give thou me strength to make a hit.’

“He struck out.

“The next man up was an Irishman. He spat on the plate, made faces at the pitcher, and yelled:

“‘You know me, Al!’ He made a home-run.”

TELL THIS NOT IN BOSTON

An American boy had his first experience in the first line of trenches under fire, and an American woman met him.

“Well, boy,” asked the woman, “what was it like? Pretty awful experience, wasn’t it?”

“Awful?” grinned the Sammee. “Funniest thing you ever saw.”

“Funny?” echoed the woman, amazed. “Why, what in the world do you mean?”

“Those beans! Why – ” and he went off into a gale of laughter. “Of course you don’t know. But cook had made an enormous pot of beans for the boys and, say, they did smell some good. But they were too hot and so cook put them on the edge of the trench to cool off. Just then the Germans let go some shells and one hit that pot square. And it didn’t do anything to those beans. Honestly, ma’am, it simply rained beans for an hour!”

THE MESSAGE WAS SOBER, ANYHOW

General Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir Douglas Haig’s “right-hand man,” is rather fond of relating a story concerning a major who, sent to inspect an outlying fort, found the commander intoxicated. He immediately locked him up; but the bibulous one managed to escape, and, making his way to the nearest telegraph office, dispatched the following message to no less a personage than the colonial secretary: “Man here, named – , questions my sobriety. Wire to avert bloodshed.”

HE HADN’T FINISHED

They had brought him in very carefully, the husky but femininely gentle stretcher bearers, for he was nothing but a kid after all, with a complexion like a girl’s and with pathetically pleading eyes. He was crying in his hospital bed when the correspondent came across him and stopped to investigate.

“Are you in great pain?” the newspaper man sympathetically asked.

The lad looked into the other’s eyes and nodded with a choking sob.

“Where does it hurt?” the correspondent pursued.

“It ain’t that,” was the reply; “it’s because they yanked me out of the scrap when I still had ten rounds left.”

THE OOZING OF THE COONS

Negro Sergeant – “When I say ‘’Bout face!’ you place de toe of yo’ right foot six inches to de reah of de heel of yo’ left foot and jus’ ooze aroun’.”

SHE WAS IN UNIFORM

First Officer (in spasm of jealousy) – “Who’s the knock-kneed chap with your sister, old man?”

Second Officer – “My other sister.”

NO CHALLENGING OUT OF HIS CLASS

Sergeant (surprising sentry) – “Why didn’t you challenge that man who just passed?”