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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (May 18, 1944)
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RELEASE THE STORY THUS FAR: Forty-four year-old Wilbert Winkle, who operates a repair shop in the back of his home, is notified by his draft board that he is In 1-A. He breaks the bad news to his domineering wife, Amy. The night be fore leaving, Mrs. Winkle tells Wilbert she is worried that he may take up with other women but he tells her she has nothing to worry about. On arriving at ramp Mr. Wimple is given his phys ical, and to his great surprise and dis may, Is accepted. He takes the oath of enlistment, is given instructions in bed making, and later given so many "shots” he cannot remember how many. He Is sent to Camp Squibb, a thousand miles from home, where he meets Mr. Tinker. CHAPTER VII “Me,” said Mr. Tinker, “I feel good. I was going to join up any way." After a moment he growled, “My kid brother was at Midway. He was a flier. Yeah, he got killed there. After the family squeezed every nickel for years sending him to college and on.” “Oh.” said Mr. Winkle. "Me,” Mr. Tinker went on, “all I want to do is kill me one Jap. I don’t want to shoot him. I just want to get him between these.” He pushed out two great hairy hands and clenched each into a fist. “When you feel you’re three-quar ters done, stop.” “That’ll be for the kid. The rest I’ll get will be gravy.” Mr. Winkle wished that he had only a small part of the plumber’s lust for vengeance. “If I don’t get to the Japs,” pro posed Mr. Tinker, "and you do, will you strangle one for me?” Mr. Winkle swallowed. His throat felt dry. “Why, yes—certainly,” he promised. “Don’t go back on me,” Mr. Tink er searched Mr. Winkle with his beetling gaze. But he didn’t give Mr. Winkle the mouse-look. In appreciation, Mr. Winkle said, “I won’t go back on you.” As if he weren’t quite sure Mr. Winkle would keep to his word, or was capable of keeping to it, Mr. Tinker pronounced, “I’m going to ask every guy I meet so there won’t be no mistake about it.” Mr. Winkle was envious and a lit tle awed. Mr. Tinker scowled. Something was bothering him. "I didn’t like all them questions they asked,” he said. “What’s the idea of all that stuff?” Mr. Winkle explained that it was to fit each man into work according to the best of his abilities and ex perience. You mean, asKea Mr. TinKer, “they maybe might not make me into a shooting soldier?” Mr. Winkle said there was a pos sibility of this, especially in view of Mr. Tinker’s background of being handy with tools. “Not a plumber?” Mr. Tinker asked in alarm. “I won’t be no plumber.” It was Mr. Winkle’s opinion that the Army had all its plumbing taken care of by civilian contractors. It would be in some other mechanical capacity. Mr. Tinker looked glum. “Then how am I going to get me a Jap?” He held up his hands and stared at them as if he were going to fail them. "I knew I shouldna told that guy I take down my jalopies and put them together again.” “Well,” Mr. Winkle consoled him, “it isn’t decided yet.” He didn't confess his fear that it was. He had heard the stories—and met a few examples—of the Army habit of learning that a man was a baker and then promptly making a truck driver out of him. Thinking of himself as a round peg, Mr. Win kle was sure that he would remain in the square hole of training for the infantry in which he now found him self fastened securely. Mr. Winkle was sure that his mis ery was greater than that of any of his fellows. Filled with rules and regulations, to say nothing of the Articles of War, Instruction on How and Whom to Sa lute, How to Have the Proper Atti tude, Military Obligations, The Re sponsibilities of Group Life, Mili tary Courtesy, Sanitation, Care of Clothing and Equipment, and The Positions of a Soldier, he was afraid to move a finger for fear the War Department would not approve. When the War Department, as represented by Sergeant Czeide skrowski, failed to approve, Mr. Win kle reported to the Mess Sergeant. Almost always there he found Freddie, who had virtually taken up residence in the kitchen. Jack ap peared, too,"as well as Mr. Tinker. They washed dishes, swept the floor and peeled onions and even the traditional potatoes. Once Mr. Win kle was given a bag and a stick with an iron point on its end and told to pick up papers and cigarette butts around the grounds. He was certain that this was no kind of work for a respectable married citizen of the United States. Not even when he was doing things right could Mr. Winkle satisfy the War Department. On the exercise field he kept up with the other men, though he knew his face was flushed and he breathed hard. Then, abrupt ly, the muscled exercise Sergeant would call: “Hey, you there—John!” Mr. Winkle realized he was being addressed. . What s your name; the exer cise Sergeant demanded. “Winkle,” replied Mr. Winkle quite as if his nameplate, pinned on his chest, did not announce the fact. “All right, John," he was advised, “when you feel you’re three-quar ters done, stop. That's an order. You know what an order is, John?” Mr. Winkle said that he did. “So I don’t want to waste time picking up any guys who pass out,” the Sergeant instructed him. Mr. Winkle noticed that he was the only man told to take it easy. Mr. Tinker W’asn’t told anything, but kept right on with the others, even though he puffed. At bayonet practice he could find no satisfaction in jabbing at the swinging stuffed figure. He simply could not conceive of himself ever thrusting that wicked blade into an other human being, no matter how much a German or a Jap deserved it. He shuddered when it was ex plained that it was often difficult to withdraw the blade from a body, and sometimes it had to be twisted out. Certainly he didn’t lunge at the figure the way Jack Pettigrew did. Everyone knew that when Jack thrust his bayonet into it, he was sticking Freddie with it. When Fred die sliced with his bayonet, you could take your choice whether he thought of the figure as Jack or the Alphabet. Mr. Tinker swung vicious ly, and the figure then became a Jap. But Mr. Winkle had no feroc ity at all. The Lieutenant was patient with him, explaining, “Some day you may be in the position where you either get the other fellow first, or he gets you. Think of it that way. Now, try again. Jump at it! Lunge! Kill it!” Mr. Winkle jumped. He lunged. He killed it with a blow that hardly penetrated the figure. The Lieuten ant shook his head and called the next man. The bayonet and exercise inci dents gave Mr. Winkle an attack of imagination, the first he had had since being made into a soldier. He became convinced that he could nev er compete with the others. He wouldn’t be as hardened as they, he wouldn’t be sufficiently trained, and this would be his own fault. When the tt^t came on the battlefield, he would not be in condition, nor would he be enough of a killer even to pro tect himself. He saw himself in retreat before the enemy. He couldn’t keep up. Finally he could go no farther. Mr. Tinker and Jack offered to carry him, but Mr. Winkle wouldn’t have it, knowing they would be caught with him. He made them go on, leaving him, and then an enemy soldier appeared. The man raised his rifle high, the bayonet gleaming. It started to come down into Mr. Winkle, who had a last thought of Amy and who knew that the blade would afterward have to be twisted to get it out of him . . . On their first pay day, which was a Saturday, they were given passes to town. They stood in line before the orderly room, and entered one by one to receive their salaries. Aft er practice under the tutelage of the Alphabet, who watched critically from the side of the Lieutenant’s desk, they saluted, wheeled, and marched out again. Mr. Winkle was astounded and Mr. Tinker, with most of the others, was aggrieved at the amounts they received. After deduction for laun dry, dry cleaning, expenses at the Post Exchange, the barber shop, movies, insurance, camp newspa per, recreation fund, a contribution to the old soldiers’ home and sev eral items Mr. Winkle didn’t alto gether understand or remember, his envelope contained seventeen dol lars and thirty cents. Mr. Tinker did a little better be cause he had no wife to whom went twenty-two dollars of his pay, to make up, with the twenty-eight con tributed by the Government, the fifty that would be sent to the homes of married men. But still Mr. Tinker complained that he used to make more in a week than he now made in a month. “But you weren’t getting ready for the Japs then,” Mr. Winkle re minded. “Yeah,” said Mr. Tinker, “that’s right.” They squandered a dime of their affluence on a bus to town. Every one not on duty was going, with the exception of Freddie. Mr. Winkle and Mr. Tinker inves tigated the town together. It was an old-fashioned community, with red brick buildings and discouraged looking stores. It had a bewildered air of having for years gone about its quiet affairs and then suddenly found itself with thousands of sol diers on its hands. After a single turn up and down the main street. Mr. Tinker ex pressed his disgust. "Dead,’* he said. "A graveyaad. or almost." From the tone of his voice Mr. Winkle detected that Mr. Tinker had seen something he hadn’t observed. He learned what this was when Mr. Tinker proposed that it was time for a beer, and led the way into a bar they had twice passed. Here there was life, especially in the form of a number of young la dies seated in booths. Mr. Tinker, at a distance, made friends in pantomime with two of them while he and Mr. Winkle drank their beer at the bar. Rather cau tiously, Mr. Tinker inquired of Mr. Winkle if he cared to make the ac quaintance of the two young ladies. Mr. Winkle refused as gracefully as he could. "But don’t let me stop you," he offered broad-mindedly. Mr. Tinker regarded him queru lously, as if to wonder what kind of a friend he had made. He walked over to the ladies, who received him enthusiastically. They looked after Mr. Winkle curiously when he walked out. The first time Mr. Winkle forgot to take his pills, he rushed to swal low them in order to avoid getting sick. The second time it slipped his mind he was filled with panic that three days had elapsed since he had taken them. Before he could dig down in his green-metal barracks trunk for the bottle, it occurred to him that every thing was all right. The Army life had come, perhaps not gently, but firmly, and taken his dyspepsia away from him. He no longer need ed his pills. When they had first received their rifles, he regarded his as some thing whidh might explode at any moment. The very touch of it made him nervous and he was glad, each afternoon, after the day's training was over, to get rid of it by placing it in the rifle rack. In time he developed a certain familiarity with the weapon, largely because it was so much his con stant companion. With some re ___ “Can’t we do anything for you?” she asked. luctance he even entertained a slight admiration for the clever details of its wicked mechanism. Firing it, however, was another matter. The first day on the range, Mr. Winkle closed his eyes when he pulled the trigger. The resulting explosion made him open his eyes. For an instant he was sure he had shot himself; at least his shoulder felt as if he had. He was informed by the Alphabet that he hadn’t hit any part of the target. On successive tries he didn’t do much better, but he learned to keep his eyes open and sight. A rifle was bad enough, but when the day came that the mysteries of a machine gun were revealed to them, the palms of Mr. Winkle’s hrnds perspired copiously and his stomach crawled. Nevertheless, he carried out his duty. Sitting before the weapon, the white cloth of the target be came a blank, with the horizontal, perpendicular, and slanting boxes marked on it erased as far as he could see them. He was so hot when he squeezed the trigger that his glasses became clouded and he might as well have been blind. The gun jumped, spitting out a hail of lead. A great vibration was in his hands. It felt like a series of sharp electric shocks. He let go hurriedly. Except for the chatter of other guns down the line, there was si lence. The Alphabet filled it. “You plowed up plenty of ground,” he told Mr. Winkle. “Now see what you can do to the target.” (TO BE CONTINUED) 5328 I/^EEP ’em looking attractive— and cool and comfortable on hot lays! This pretty play set is quickly cut and sewn from a small amount of material. Airy little sun-suit is buttoned on shoulders—makes it simple to launder. Tiny tie-on skirt i matches. Buttoned bonnet is made of one flat piece for ease in iron ing. Two appliques are given—a bright tulip and a tiny kitten’s head. Let little Sister choose which one she wants on her play suit! • • • To obtain pattern for play suit pinafore, sun hat and two applique' patterns (Pat tern No. 5328) (adjustable for sizes 2-3-4) send 16 cents In coin, your name and ad dress and the pattern number. Send your order to: SEWING CIRCLE NEEDLEWORK 530 South Wells St. Chicago. Enclose 15 cents (plus one cent to cover cost of mailing) for Pattern No. Name .. Address ..... The Way It Is Son—Say, Dad, I’d like to ask your advice about something. Father—You mean you want my endorsement of something foolish you’ve already done. On the Floor Observer—That's quite a large skat ing rink you've got there. Owner—Ves, it has a seating capacity of 500. _ Ain’t life funny? We boil water to make tea hot, put ice in to make it cold, then lemon to make it sour, then sugar to make it sweet. Not Unusual “I think she is as pretty as she can be.” ‘‘Most girls are.” I Fmmmmmmmm, Protect and MM \?VtM& ______ akin with Mexsana, the CHAFE BO°thing, medicated pow “ der. Also relieve burning ANNOYS itching, of irritated akin. Use Indian Dialects The army often uses Indian dia lects for messages since the ene my is unable to decipher them. a* ass IgSSk***1 that thin*- t0OTH r.hLOX r.«-« Types of Insects There are about 624,000 types of insects in the world. ^To relieve distress of MONTHLY ^ Female Weakness Lydia E. 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