One day a company of American engineers was hard at work laying the rails for a piece of track over which the English soldiers could send their supply trains up to the front. It was very near the front trenches. The engineers were working in danger from bursting shells. They had surveyors' instruments with them, and picks, shovels and tools.

Suddenly the Germans attacked. They came running up, firing their rifles, and throwing their hand grenades, and in a moment they were all around the American engineers.

But the American engineers did not surrender. Some of them found guns. The others caught up their pick-axes and shovels, and fought with those. And they fought so well that they beat the Germans back and cleared their own way to the English trenches. There they fought side by side with the English soldiers until the attack was beaten.

To fight hard and never give up was the spirit of our first Minute Men. It is still the spirit of our Army.

One day a company of American soldiers was at rest in a small French village. Most of the men had very little money. Many of them had nothing more than their pay.

Along the dusty road came a poor desolate old woman. She was ragged and thin, and her eyes showed that she had lost her mind.

There was a little shop where some of the American boys were buying sandwiches and hot coffee. They led the old woman into the shop and gave her food. Then one of them who spoke French, talked with her. When he had heard her story he translated it to the other soldiers.

The poor ragged old woman had been the happy mother in a prosperous household in northern France. When the Germans conquered the town, the soldiers had come into her house, had killed her daughter and her husband, and had left her half dead.

A few days later one of her two sons had been killed in battle. Then she had started wandering over the roads, to find the other son. Her mind was quite gone, and she would never stay in any one place, but always wandered away, hoping to find her boy.

When the young man had finished translating, the American soldiers were all crying. They gave the poor mother nearly all the money they had. One boy who had no money gave her a pair of woolen socks, and another gave her his muffler.

That, too, was the spirit of our Army.

The soldiers in our Army and Navy have not only given up their education, their work, their pleasure; they not only offer their lives in the service; but they have given from their little salary to the Red Cross, to the Y.M.C.A., and over and over again to the suffering women and children of northern France.

The spirit of brotherhood, of sacrifice and service, is the spirit of the American Army. And as American children we should know it and be proud of it. Let us say a prayer that our American brothers in khaki brown may ever be worthy of the "General Order" that our American Commander in France, General Pershing, sent to his boys, our American Expeditionary Force:

"Hardship will be your lot, but trust in God will give you comfort; temptation will befall you, but the teachings of our Saviour will give you strength. Let your valor as a soldier, and your conduct as a man, be an inspiration to your comrades and an honor to your country."

TH

colors. There is one flag that belongs to all nations alike. That flag is a red cross on a white background, the flag of the Red Cross Society. It stands for the love and mercy that came into the world when Jesus died on the cross. It stands for the blood of suffering that is alike in all races, and the purity of mercy that all humanity needs alike.

That flag, like the Stars and Stripes, was made by

a woman, but in a different way from that in which our flag was made by Betsy Ross. For the Red Cross Society was founded by a woman. Its beautiful meaning and holy work grew out of the compassion of a woman's heart.

It is our honor and privilege as American children to belong to the Nation that gave birth to Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross.

Clara Barton was a teacher. She was born in the little town of Oxford, Massachusetts. When our Civil War broke out she was a clerk in Washington, but she went into a hospital and became a nurse. She took care of sick and wounded soldiers.

The suffering of soldiers and the grief of their families became to her the most important thing in life. She spent her money and gave her time to the work of finding men who were reported missing. She comforted the sorrowing families, and cared for the sick soldiers wherever she found them.

After the Civil War Miss Barton went to Europe for a rest. But she soon found work waiting for her. War came between France and Germany, a terrible and bloody war. Clara Barton helped the Grand Duchess of Baden arrange hospitals for the care of the soldiers. She followed the German