Army Boys in the French Trenches | Page 8

Rhine, so they come rightly by
their talent in that line. But what's the matter with Tony here?" he
added, as they passed by one of the field kitchens in a protected nook,
where one of the bakers was kneading away desperately at some dough
and muttering volubly to himself.
"He seems all riled up about something, for a fact," commented Frank.
"What's the matter, Tony?" inquired Bart of the perspiring baker, an
Italian who had spent some years in the United States and who was
generally liked by the boys of the old Thirty-seventh because of his
customary good nature and his skill in compounding their favorite
dishes.
Tony looked up in despair.
"I can't maka de dough," he complained. "I worka more dan hour. It
lika de sand. It getta my goat."
The boys laughed at his woe-begone face.
"Put some more water with it," suggested Billy at a venture.
Tony looked at him with such a glare of contempt that the amateur
baker wilted.
"I usa de water!" he exclaimed. "Plent water! No maka de stick."
"It looks all right," remarked Frank, as he picked up some of the
substance on the kneading board and let it dribble through his fingers,
"but as Tony says, it's like so much sand."

"And it tastes queer," said Billy, putting a bit of it on his tongue.
"Looks as though some of the food profiteers were trying to put
something over on us," observed Tom.
Just then one of the commissary men came along, evidently looking for
something.
"There's a bag of trench foot powder missing," he said. "Have any of
you chaps seen anything of it?"
"Not guilty," returned Bart. "Though the way my feet feel it wouldn't
do them a bit of harm to have some of that powder on them right now."
A sudden light dawned upon Frank.
"Say, Tony!" he exclaimed, "let's see the bag you got that flour from."
Tony complied and brought forth from one of his receptacles a large
paper bag which was two thirds full.
Frank seized it and turned it around to see what was stamped on the
other side. Then he almost dropped the bag in a wild fit of hilarity.
"No wonder Tony couldn't make his dough!" he exclaimed, when he
could speak. "Some chump in the supply department has handed him
out a bag of foot powder when he asked for flour."
He showed the others the marking on the bag, and their merriment
equaled his own, while Tony alternately glowered and grinned. He had
begun to think that somebody had cast on him the "evil eye," so
dreaded by his countrymen, and he was relieved to find that his plight
was due to natural causes. Yet the thought of all that wasted effort
stirred him to resentment.
"That's one on you, Tony, old boy!" chuckled Billy, with a poke in the
ribs.
"It's lucky the dough wouldn't stick," laughed Frank. "There wouldn't

have been much nourishment in that kind of bread."
"Dat guy a bonehead," asserted Tony, as he scraped his board with
vigor. "A vera beeg bonehead."
The boys assented and passed on laughing.
"And now for grub!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, boy, maybe it won't taste
good!"
"I guess we've earned our breakfast, all right," said Bart.
"I can stand a whole lot of filling up," observed Tom. "Talk about
exercise before breakfast to get you an appetite. We've sure had enough
of it this morning."
"I never ran so fast in my life," declared Billy. "A Marathon runner
would have had nothing on me."
"We must have covered the space between those trenches in about
twenty seconds," agreed Bart.
"Well, as long as we weren't running in the wrong direction it was all
right," grinned Tom.
"The Boches haven't seen our backs yet, and here's hoping it will be
some time before they'll have that treat," said Frank with a laugh.
They ate like famished wolves and then threw themselves on their
bunks to get a long sleep in preparation for the strenuous night that lay
before them. And so used had they already become to roaring of
cannon and whining of bullets and shrieking of shells, that, although
the din was almost incessant all through that day, it bothered them not
at all.
It was nearly dusk when the corporal passed along, giving them a shake
that roused them from their slumbers and brought them out of their
bunks in a hurry.

"Time to get up, boys," said the corporal. "Not that we're going to start
out right away. But we've got quite a job before us and I want you to
have plenty of time to think over your instructions and have them sink
in."
They dressed quickly and after a hearty supper reported to Wilson