With the Colors | Page 3

77
Because----! 79
That Smile 80
The Gift of Gifts 81
The Neighbors 82
Uncle Bill's Idea 83
'Lizabeth Ann's Picture 85
The Small Boy Explains 87
The Bold Lover 88
Imagination 89
Willing to Trade 91
The Lonely Child 93
Th' Little Feller's Gone 95
The Fisherman's Son 97
The Dog Confesses 99
Br'er Rabbit in de Bresh Pile 101
When 104
WITH THE COLORS
THE COLORS
It isn't just colors and bunting--
The red and the blue and the white.


It's something heaps better and finer,--
It's the _soul_ of my country
_in sight!_
There's a lot of ceremony 'bout the Flag,
Though many half-baked
patriots believe
Salutin' it and hangin' it correct
"Is only loyalty
upon the sleeve."
But we who work beneath the Flag to-day,
Who'll
honor it--and die for it, perhaps--
Get a slightly different view of the
old red, white and blue Than is visioned by th' criticisin' chaps.
It isn't just for decoratin' things,
It isn't just an emblem, clean and
bright,
No matter what its "hoist" or what its "fly,"
To us it means
our country--wrong or right!
The sobby stuff that some good people
spout
Won't help a man to understand this view,
But: Wherever that
Flag goes, the man who follows, _knows_
That a better, cleaner
citizen _goes too!_
It's not just a banner to look at,--
For which we're expected to fight;

It's something that represents _freedom;_
It's the _soul_ of my
country--in sight!
LOYALTY
This is no time to quibble or to fool;
To argue over who was wrong,
who right;
To measure fealty with a worn foot-rule;
To ask: "Shall
we keep still or shall we fight?"
The Clock of Fate has struck; the
hour is here;
War is upon us now--not far away;
One question only
rises, clarion clear:
"How may I serve my country, day by day?"
Not all of us may join the khakied throng
Of those who answer and
go forth to stem
The tide of war. But we