nee Nera ae a The Son of a Soldier. Erie Porter's father was a soldier, and Erie had no doubt that he was the finest officer in all the army, for no une else in the crowd at the railway station seemed so straight or so tall or so . Eric and his mother were saying good-by to him, and they knew that they would not see him for long months, perhaps not for years. With his cheek pressed close against the soft sleeve of his father's coat, Eric listened to his mother saying gond-by. For a moment he hid his eyes against the khaki and left two tears that had welled up in spite of him. But his eyés were clear and smil- ing when he looked up, and neither his father nor his mother guessed that the tears had been there only a mo- ment before. "Well, Eric," said his father, "you'll take care of mother, won't you? Don't let anything happen to her--not the nage: little thing. © She's very pescices oO Almost before Erié knew it the good-bys were over and the train was pulling out of the station. When it was gone Eric and his mother hurried to another train, for they, too, were going away. They were going to Cedar Tavern, at the foot of White Patch Mountain. There they would spend a week in snowshoeing and sleigh riding. Father said that it would put the color back into mother's cheeks, All the way to the mountain--on the train and in the sleigh that carried them to the low-roofed tavern--Eric made believe that he was his father: he handed his mother's ticket to the conductor, tucked the robes about her in the sleigh and tried to make her ponseet that there had been any good- my é "See how deep the snow is!" she cried. "We shall have to go for a long tramp to-morrow." ae, Aas Once they lost the way and after thet snowshoes. for a few moments, they went more slowly. "We must watch catefully," said was worry in her voice. Fifteen minutes. later they both stopped and peered at the snow d. said Eric. "I ea! "They're not there," ' The snow can't see a single tra has covered them 'all up." "Well, let's go straight ahead," gee mother; and so they tramped through the snowstorm,' while the woods grew darker and darker. "Keep close behind me and don't be afraid," said mother, when night had shut down upon them. "Of course I'm not afraid," said Eric, thinking of what his father had said; and the words were no more than across his lips when something happened that brought to him the greatest fear of his life. He saw his mother pitch forward as if her foot had suddenly caught in something, and heard her strike heav- ily against a tree trunk. She did not answer when he called. Huddled in the snow she lay, and made no motion when Eric put his arm beneath her head and tried to lift her up. Again and again Eric called~her; again and again he stroked her face. It was of no use. He almost seem- ed to hear his father saying, "She's very, very precious to me, Eric," and he wanted to cry; but that, he knew, would do no good, and so he shouted for help instead. The storm brought back no reply. Finally he gave it up. There was only one thing to do, and he must do it quickly. If he could not bring help by calling, he must go for it. He took off his coat and put it over his mother to shelter her from the falling snow, and then with a great lump in his throat hurried away. Sometimes he stumbled against trees They did go snowshoeing the next | day; but it was afternoon when they, and fell, but he always scrambled up and ran on. mother; and Eric thought that there b wi al' b. She even ridiculed at first the notion that be so ous as thi fighting Great Britain. Her point of view has changed now. She knows her cha Tommy is a good fighter--and he is-- ut she knows also that the Kaiser's soldiers can fight, and that there!; seems to be an almost endless supply' of them. But she knows that the man power of the Allies will increase, an that the man power of Germany can- not increase, and she knows that the United States and England, with France doing her part in as noble a manner as-ever, can triumph over the Hun in time. A Hopeful Outlook. No secret is now made of the fact that a year ago there was a fear that the submarine menace would become so formidable that a peace reasonably suitable to Germany would have to be made, but those fears are held no longer. England is satisfied that she will be able to get all the food 'and supplies she needs; that the United States will come forward in the spring and summer of this year with a splen- did fleet: of new ships, and that there will be plenty of vessels for the trans- portation of troops. With what she believes to be a most roseate prospect ahead of her England has settled down to a good siege of |t discomforts, hardships and, if need be, downright suffering. Fully half of the men one meets in the streets are soldiers in uniform. Many are in London on leave. Many are on the way from the possessions | ° to the front. Australians and Cana- dians are numerous. Air Raids Now Commonplace. Air raids are expected at all times. London is prepared for them: ' The re- sident population has grown accus- tomed to them and knows where to go for safety when the warning is given that enemy aircraft are coming to- ward the city. It is surprising how little damage has been done, consider- ing the number of raids that have been RUMANLA'S OIL WELLS ARE THE BASIS OF U-BOAT WAR. : i. Germany is Absolutely Certain This Underseas Weapon Will Bring It Vietdky. "Romania's oi] wells have made the submarine warfare possible, and the German absolutely believes the U-boat is the weapon that will bring him final victory," said Miss Herring, of Bloomsbury, Pennsylvania, recently returned from a four years' stay in Germany. "Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Mackensen are the great national heroes of the empire, buf the sub- marine crews are the spoiled and pet- ted darlings of the people." In her discussion of the submarine and its effect on the German people she said officialdom had paved the way for the resumption of submarine war- fare with the usual keen insight into the Teutonic mind. "Don't for an instant believe," she added, "the Germans know the subma- rine warfare is carried on in such a ruthless manner as we know. Nothing of the kind, All submarine reports are denatured. Thé newspapers mere- ly state such and such a vessel was sunk, and it had, say, 20,000 tons of wheat aboard, Nothing is said of the loss of life attendant on such an oper- ation by the U-boat. For that reason the submarine is applauded on every hand as the real factor in the final his inability k at a time and then ketal so. long hed do it." : = AY THE LITLE TOWN OF EVIAN, Where the French Exiles Return te on the Swiss border of France is the scene of one of the most moving and dramatic spectacles in the world. Twice a day a train comes into Evian bearing its load of Erench people who, te do more than one thing pido oe Their Native Land. -- : Twice a day the little town of Evian since the early days of the war, have been in the power of the Germans, and who now, because they are too sick or teo feeble to be useful to the invaders and because they have mouths to be fed, are being released by their cap- tors and repatriated. At the station the Red Cross ambulances wait to re- move such passengers as are too ill to walk. Often they receive the bodies of travellers who have died on the journey. The poor fugitives swarm out of the train, dazed, helpless. The mayor of Evian, in silk hat, frock coat and white gloves, escorts them to the town hall. ere they sit down to a feast that is awaiting them--the first good meal,\perhaps, that they have eaten in three peste. When they have finished, the mayor rises and makes always the same speech--yet always with as much earnestness and emotion as the words had been prepared for the special occasion. "Beloved fellow citi- zens," he begins; and he welcomes them back to France, and assures them that now their sufferings are past and that henceforth they are among friends. Then, always, the poor pecgle begin {PICTURESQUE PEN-PICTURE OF NO MAN'S LAND. That Grim. Area Where Death in Strange and Violent Forms Always Lies in Wait. There is a country, not far distant from us, and familiar to many who walk in our midst--a country arross whose spaces many eyes are gazing, regretfully or longingly, at this mo- ment--a country seldom trodden, al- beit, perhaps, thronged™ by strange ghosts--a country as real and solid as the street outside your window--yet a country which is marked upon no pub- lished maps, says an English writer. It is an enormous country, in actual shape. Its in Europe. --a tragic name, famed the whole world over. Open your atlas and turn to the page called "Europe," and you will search vainly for that name. For the name--it owns the saddest three syllables in history!--is No Man's nd. if ; La From Switzerland to the Sea. No Man's Land stretches from Swit¢ zerland to the sea. If you ever, in th dear, bygone days, enjoyed one those jolly Five-guinea Trips to Ly! cerne, you travelled along (at least fn' part) what is now No Man's Land! You looked forth from the Ostend-to- to weep; the words of kindness an sympathy, following upon an act of kindness and sympathy, reach their' | triumph. News of Sinking of Lesianie. | | "I know in Bavaria the first news ceived with mixed feelings by the peo- ple. While there may have been gen-| a rejoicing in Prussia, there was criticism by many of the best-inform- ed Bavarians against such methods of warfare. It really did affect these Bavarians to have women and children sunk. But it did not last, for the Gov- ernment did its usual work with its usual finesse. "By insidious propaganda they showed that, while it was necessary to sacrifice the lives of noncombatants, hearts. And what are these people like who are thus released to freedom'? They or broken men. Boys, young girls never descend from the train at Evian. The Germans can make use of those. And the mother; who is told by the German official that | her 'turn has come and that she is now to go back to France, but that her six-! teen-year-old daughter and her four-' teen-year-old son will remain--vain is! er pleading. She must go and they must stay--and she should be more grateful for her good fortune! So always at the feast at Evian Bale express at smiling, diligently-; cultivated fields, which were then Someone's Land. Now they are a smear of mud, pitted with the giant _ smallpox shell-holes, and dotted here and there with prone, ragged Things of the sinking of the Lusitania was re- | are faded women, little children and old | | That Once Were Men. High in the wel- young men,} kin overhead the aeroplanes whir. But there are other, and invisible, wings, Ito oo, always hovering---the dark pin- ions of the Angel of Death, silent, and * not always kindly. Why it is I know not, but the people who stay at home seem invariably to _picture No Man's Land as a flat d sert, or, at most, slighily undulating, |and bare to the horizon. The curious! ithing about No Man's Land is t \the Swiss end jit is mountainous--as made by the Huns and the weight of there is misery and suffering that | vou who went on that trip to "Lovely, "Foggy blackness of ars started, for mother said that she could He was beginning to despair when not go untjl she had written a long,; through the darkness ahead he long letter to the finest officer in the} thought he saw a gleam of light. A army. Eric wrote one, too; but it! moment later he was sure of it, Run- was pretty short, for it took him a| ning forward, he came upon a rough-- long time to make some of the words.| looking cabin, and, looking through At the end he wrote, "I'm taking care| the window, he saw a short, swarthy- of. her all = one "a faced man cooking something over the}}, ow 're '. cri m ne " it at Fein they had Zasoiund thet =3 it. there. ir snowshoes on and had set out toward help me get her!" cfled Eric. i the mountain. "Let's go into the the door and rushing in. deep woods, and when we get ready! The man jumped round and stared to come home we'll just turn round at Eric as if he were a snow sprite. and follow our tracks back to the! "You modder?" he said. "Out dere tavern."" \ |in snow? I come quick.' Eric shouted to hear the echo, and | In ten seconds he had a lantern the cliffs of WHite Patch threw back | lighted and was out in the storm with his happy voice. His snowshoes were, Eric, following the marks of the lit- a foot shorter than his mother's, and tle snowshoes. They found her at the they had little tassels of red yarn all foot of the tree where she had fallen, up and down the sides. What could and the swarthy-faced man picked her be better fun, he thought, than to go up gently and: plodded back toward on and on through the woods, pushing | the cabin, with Eric at his heels. aside snow-laden branches, running! No sooner had they reached the down little slopes, leaping from the' warm glow of the fireplace than his tops of snowbanks--and all the while! mother opened her eyes and looked to have your mother laughing and | round, yhy, where are we?" she happy, too, doing the same things you! cried and held out her arms to Eric. are doing, while her cheeks glow rosily | "Dis my cabin," said the swarthy- like maple leaves in autumn. | faced man. "Me_Bateese Duchane, There seemed to be no such thing as} | trapper. You bump you head on tree. danger then, but suddenly mother | Now you safe. Bimeby 1 tak' you stopped in a little open glade and! back Cedar Tavern." y looked up at the sky. , Snow was | Later, Eric's mother sat bundled in floating lazily down, and while they! a great red blanket, drinking tea and stood silent they could hear the whis-| feeling comfortable. Eric sat at her per of the flakes among the branches: feet, toasting his toes on the hearth of the trees. | and thinking of the long letter that he "Turn round, Eric,' said mother.; would write to his father as soon as "We must go back before the snow : they got back to Cedar Tavern. covers our tracks." 'would say. "I did take care of her," = they might take the bombs they have dropped. One might walk about the city for a week without seeing the first evidence of the bombardments. Still the people talk much about them and a_ stranger is told at great length just what he or she must do when: the policemen blow their. warning whistles and 'the the pe nh the 'idea 'of disgusting England with the war and giving im- petus to any possible movement for peace. But the raids are having the opposite effect. All cities in England are putting up with the same _ incon- veniences as is London. All are pos- sible targets for the Hun bombs and thus all are kept in darkness. Courage of Telephone Girls. Women telephone operators will be mentioned in the honor lists to be giv- en out early in the year. During raids of the severest description the tele- phone girls have remained heroically at their posts. Despite the fact that the operators at important centres have received permission to take cover during raids, they have refused to leave their work. With guns thunder- ing and bombs dropping frequently in the immediate vicinity they have car- ried on their work with splendid fear- lessness, realizing that the telephone plays an effective part in the defence of the city's homes. On the occasion of the first daylight raid the operators at an important sta- tion near the danger zone were told shelter, but volun- teers were asked for so that the ser- vice would not have to be discontinued. They ran through the darkening; and he would sign it "Eric, the son of forest, following the marks of of their ja soldier." Youth's Campanion, 1 | put in factories the moment + cua can leave schoo}. Hardships Increase Determination. GREAT BRITAIN In brief, London---and all England as well--is putting up with discom- forts whtsh might well be expected to eevee -- stagger, if not completely discourage, PLUCK AND TENACITY WILL a nation. But England is neither WIN THE WAR. 1. It may be said "quite truthfully that the more t sacrifices she is called upon to make and the more privations imposed upon her the more dogged becomes her de- termination to crush Germany, and to } Stick to the task till a complete job |has been done. Great Measured by the inconveniences and old ; hardships London already is suffering ime g/ We in Canada know nothing at all of spirit--commonly called pluck an {the war. To begin with, daylight does tenacity--which won so many War | not start tid) nearly eight o'clock in has been roused now as never before, | the morning and daylight ends at four. says a correspondent, England is; tIn all the great city not a light gleams groping around in inky darkness at/|from a window. The streets are black. night. She is having much, less food} ----_ wae hee at infrequent in- than she ought to have he is pay- tervals. Ail are shaded so that only ing high prices, She is sacrificing her | gee circle Nom is thrown on amusements and her pleasures. She the pavement. ops and restaurants is staying indoors at night and con- 'appear closed. One might walk the en- stantly watching skyward for enemy tire length of the Strand, Piccadilly, -- , Hes = aes | fe ge oe any " oe are a thing of the pas anquets are 0 ares at night and no unknown. Bars are closed except dur- | see the first suggestion of life behind ing short periods at midday and in | the solid walls. the evening. hay army of workers} Travel at Night Dangerous. goes to work in the darkness of early! Policemen are scarce. They usually morning and returns home in And stem a ag bin ready to guide any evening. Wo- |p w 0 strayed from his men are doing things they never | course, many do. For a & Mcnnehe ~ dreamed éf doing. Children are being/to find &: ruse 0 or street ¢ number + after Marvellous is the Fortitude and Pa- tience of British People in These a Trying Days. One does not have to be in Britain long to realize that the Practically the entire staff immediate- 'vy offered to stay on duty and they did their work till the "all clear" sig- nel was given, although their risk was ery great. Within fifty yards of this particular station there were several deaths due to bombs and the cries of the injured could be heard in the ex- change Now it is proposed that these ous girls be rewarded for their All London approves the sug- gestion. --o-- Cologne Cathedral Bell Melted. "The great bell of Cologne Cathe- | dral, called the 'Maria Gloriosa,' the Lusitania had been loaded with} enough munitions to have slain 200,000 soldiers, and it was only to protect | their husbands, sons and fathers in e@ trenches the Cunader was sunk. ! manner of excusing an atrocious crime was pa table to the people and the Lusitania 'incident' soon passed ayy at least so far as criticism of 7 > ee -- the words of the kindly mayor | r the ministrations of the friendly comeaneasie can alleviate. And if deaths occur frequently on the trains that pass through Switzerland to Evian, who can wonder? --_-----p-- A FRENCH HERO. a ot so Jodie Sor ceesin he . 19 Lucerne" will not need to be remind-| ed. Further west. at many points, it consists of pleasant valleys. Some- times No Man's Land is a wood, com- prising once beautiful glades, Some times, by a queer freak of Nature, it includes a village, or a factory, or a mine. Sometimes it is an ocean of mud. And in Flanders it isn't No Ca fene the U-boat : wwan'the at haa heen pre- pared with a canny regard for getting the people into the proper receptive! mood. It was shown England has in-'! stigated the war and peace would come so soon as Britain. had been beaten to her knees; the submarine was the-club to wield. Now the Ger-* alee people had become reconciled to anything that would bring speedy | peace; in fact, there was such a are ing for peace among the people at home that they welcomed eagerly any- thing that would make the hope 'a! reality. | Number of U-Boats Kept Secret. i "Nobtdy in Germany, outside of the| official circles, knows how many of | these undersea boats are really in the} service, but they are building them all the time. But one thing is certain-- | the crews of the submarines are the petted favorites of the people. With | starvation staring the civilian popula-; tion in the face, these men are cleat everything' that their appetite de- mands. They have white bread, they; have 'cervelat wurst,' which has dis- | appeared everywhere else. \ "This 'cervelat wurst' is a hard sau- | sage that can be sliced, and it is de-' licious. They demand it and they get; it; so with white bread. I have a friend in the service who is a crony! of Captain Du Periere, the commander of the U-36, the submarine that car- | ried the Kaicer's message to Kin ng! Alfonso of Spain. Du Periere, accord- | ing to my informant, declared some! months ago in the Mediterranean, | where he was operating, he had de- stroyed shipping to the value of 2,- 000,000 marks himself. ~~ was | "Captain Du Periere is The author-!| ity, too, for the story he started aw ay | on a cruise and at the end of thre ' rung for the last time on New "Year's | Weeks the white bread supply was oc Eve. Deeply moved, the people lis-, tened to the last notes, and a few, hours later its destruction was begun. The metal of the bell, which weighed) many tons, will now be employed for | war. The bell hung in the southern tower and was first rung en the birth- day of William I. on March 22, 1877. It was cast from French guns captur- ed in 1870-71. --_-- Sweets made from honey. should be as far as possible encouraged. If each child in the house is given a wire spring patent clothespin with which to fasten his rubbers together, there will be no mixing up of sizes or losing of one rubber. Each clothespin} should be marked with the child's name in indelible ink, 4 Ly Shur-Gain the Allies are carefully concealed until such time as the Allied press reports Germany--to hide and hide and hide-- and ee follows propaganda, That is what make ridiculous to the mative of a land kike Fertilizer ours; hausted. His crew refused to perform | ! their duties further until the white | bread was forthcoming, so the captain | put back into port to obtain a fresh owe. This only shows the manner in which the Government panders and caters to the submarine crews; ordin- ary who would act that way would be shot or imprisoned. German. Propaganda. "The losses of the submarines by a submarine has been captured that afterward turns up all right. Then the newspapers of Germany create a great fuss about this so-called misre- presentation and hint the absence of other craft may be finally found to 5 ar, ; "That is the spirit that saturates the Teuton so his readiness to be fooled and thhour in Germans Single handed' The latest French hero to be made | a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor is Corporal Paccini of the foot chasseurs, whose story is ringing all over his' country. Previous to his latest ex- ploit he had been decorated four times for bravery since winnjng his military , medal at Verdun in December, 1916. In one day at the fortress of Beg&n- | yaux he made thirty-seven re | His new citation, however, is | ' most thrilling of all as told in L' Illus. | tration. "The 27th of October, in the course of an advance beyond the | iMartjevaart, in which three villages | jhad fallen into our hands, the ----| battalion of foot chasseurs arrived | °° at the farm of Aschloop, west he Houthulst forest. It was 11 o'clock. The commandant had cleared the| concrete shelters of the farm and wa preparing to push the advance fur. | | ther when, about 100 meters away he perceived the source of a devastat- | ing machine gun fire, which sud-; denly sprang up, preventing our ad- j vance. "He called to him, Paccini. '*Paccini,' he said, 'yonder is a pill; 'box that annoys us. Go with your | squad and stop it.' Paccini took five e|% men of his squad and charged. The 'machine drummed its fire faster. When the men had dashed only a few yards one of them fell, . but the} others kept on. "One boche rushed from the pill box | Paczini shot him down, and dashed! at the rear of the shelter. Another boche dashed out firing point-blank} jat Paccini, but missing him. Paccini| jran him through with his bayonet | and appeared in the door of the pill} box bade iching the corpse of the end! of his e. leh WAL the sitht of him the goers within cried 'Kamerad.' Paccini made | them file out. There were twelve o th m. "Paccini, telling it later, said: Re this moment I looked for my | rades. I was alone, They had. all died before I came to the pill box. So I marched the twelve boches back to the captain adjutant major.' en es Use other fats as far as possible instead of butter in céoking. Savory Beef Bake.--To one-half cupful of corn bread crymbe add a cupful and a half of hot stock og hot milk and one tablespoonful of butter, To this add a cupful and a half of chopped cold beef, & cupful of diced éelery, half an onion finely chopped, a teaspoonful and a half of salt, one- half teaspoonful of paprika. Beat separately the yolks and whites of two eggs, letting the yolks get thick and light and the whites stiff. Add these to the mixture. Bake for a half a moderate oven. Use any left-over meat with this recipe. | the present, a gentleman rejoicing are struggling with Gefmany. vane artificial lagoons, by the const; | the flooded portion, whose safety-giv- 'ing waters, when winter weather freezes them, become perilous in their new form of ice, ice which is inces- ;santly kept broken by artillery drop- ing shells not on the foe, but on the |glassy floor across which the foe might steal were it firm enough to, bear his weight. Shifting Towards Germany. d we envisage No Man's Land asf a narrow ribbon. In places it is nar row, but in other places it is wide. Measure it up--its length and breadth and its ins and outs--and you will dis- r, by a simple mathematical cal- solation. that No Man's Land is of e ormous area measured in square miles. But here, again, is something od about this country marked on no pub- | lished maps--it varies in size, and it even varies in whereabouts. It is a ¥ | shifting country, very slowly shifting, and almost all the while shifting in one direction--towards Germany. ometimes it is a country of grim silence. Sometimes it is a country of, 'deafening noise. Sometimes it is a country untrodden by feet of man for} weeks or months. And one day it is' a country thickly peopled by a hurry-! ing mob. And it is after those days, that you find No Man's Land has made shif ts, one of its my sterious north-| yards or [7 put never southwards. And what was' No Man's Land is now Someone's Land again--the Someone, being, for in the name of Atkins. eee BIRD DEFIANCE. Natiralists are 2 puzzled to explain he actions of birds in the country, through which the French and British, They, take no notice whatsoever of the! frightful explosions of mines an giant shells. Burris A. Jenkins, in |his book, "Facing the Hindenburg: . Line," says regarding this phenomena:; "One afternoon we saw a queer thing.' A dark colored flyer hung almost mo4 tionless above us, as if anchored there,! We made him out to be a boche plane! He seemed to" pay no attention to alli the furore in the air, but hung there poised tranquilly, i "Then, great Scott! All of a sud-. den we saw his planes flap like the wings of a bird--they were the wings of a bird. A huge brown and black master of all storms he was, that eagle. On my word, the gunfire and a/the planes had no more effect upon his highness than would have 50, many sparrows and skylarks. They, tell me this' is true of most birds, which, unless actually hit, or their, nests 'destroyed, business of mating, singing, home making. all unmindful of the cra: \ strife 'of man, p 4-4 os