"
Dale has never been seen since, and that was two months ago. Whether
he is dead or alive we do not know, but those who knew this manly
American lad best, say unanimously: "That was just like Dale; he loved
kids, and he was always talking about his own and showing us their
pictures."
No monument will ever be erected to Dale, for he was just a common
soldier; but I for one would rather have had the monument of that
simple paragraph in the press despatches; I for one would rather have
it said of me, "The last seen of Dale he was gathering together a crowd
of little children"; I would rather have died in such a service than to
have lived to be a part of the marching army that is one day to enter
the streets of Berlin. That was a man's way to die; dying while trying
to save a crowd of little children from the cowardly Hun.
[Illustration: "The last seen of Dale he was gathering together a crowd
of little children."]
If I had died in that kind of service, in my dying moments I could have
heard the words of John Masefield from "The Everlasting Mercy" singing
in my heart:
"Whoever gives a child a treat
Makes joybells ring in Heaven's street;
Whoever gives a child a home,
Builds palaces in Kingdom Come;
Whoever brings a child to birth,
Brings Saviour Christ again to earth.
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