Of course, nothing
but a series of the most horrible guttural sounds came from the boy: not
a word could be understood. It was his first venture into the world with
the loss of his member, and the nurse-mother could not find it in her
heart to tell the boy that not a word which he spoke was understandable.
With eyes full of tears she placed both of her hands on the boy's
shoulders and said to him: "I am so sorry, my boy. I cannot understand a
word you say to me. You evidently do not know that I am totally deaf.
Won't you write what you want to tell me?"
A look of deepest compassion swept the face of the boy. To think that
one could be so afflicted, and yet so beautifully tender and always so
radiantly cheerful, he wrote her.
Pathos and humor followed rapidly one upon the other "at the front" in
those gruesome days, and Bok was to have his spirits lightened somewhat
by an incident of the next day. He found himself in one of the numerous
little towns where our doughboys were billeted, some in the homes of the
peasants, others in stables, barns, outhouses, lean-tos, and what not.
These were the troops on their way to the front where the fighting in
the Argonne Forest was at that time going on. As Bok was walking with an
American officer, the latter pointed to a doughboy crossing the road,
followed by as disreputable a specimen of a pig as he had ever seen.
Catching Bok's smile, the officer said: "That's Pinney and his porker.
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