Some Silhouettes of Sunshine gleam against the background of war like scintillating diamonds and

  “Send a thrill of laughter through the framework
      of your heart;
  And warm your inner being ’til the tear drops
      want to start.”

There was that watch-trading incident on the Toul line.

The Americans had only been there a week, but it hadn’t taken them long to get acquainted with the French soldiers.  About all the two watch-trading Americans knew of French was “Oui!  Oui!” and they used this every minute.

The American soldiers had a four-dollar Ingersoll watch, and this illuminated time-piece had caught the eye of the French soldier.  He, in turn, had an expensive, jewelled, Swiss-movement pocket-watch.  The American knew its value and wanted it.

They stood and argued.  Several times during the interesting transaction the American shrugged his shoulders and walked away as if to say:  “Oh, I don’t want your old watch.  It isn’t worth anything.”

Then they would get together again, and the gesticulating would begin all over; the machine-gun staccato of “Oui Oui’s” would rattle again, and the argument would continue, without either one of the contracting parties knowing a word of the other’s language.

At last I saw the American soldier unstrap his Ingersoll and hand it over to the Frenchman, who, in turn, pulled out the good Swiss-movement watch, and both parties to the transaction went off happy, for each had gotten what he wanted.

One of the funniest things that happened in France while I was there was told me by a wounded boy one Sunday afternoon back of the Notre Dame cathedral.  He was invalided from the Chateau-Thierry scrap in which the American marines had played such a heroic part.  He was a member of the marines, and was slightly wounded.  He saw that I was a secretary, and thought to play a good joke on me.  He pulled out of his breast-pocket a small black thing that looked and was bound just like a Bible.  Its corner was dented, and it was plain to be seen that a bullet had hit it, and that that book had stopped its death-dealing course.

I should have been warned by a gleam that I saw in his eyes, but was not.  I said:  “So you see that it’s a good thing to be carrying a Bible around in your pocket?”

“Yes, that saved my life last week,” he said impressively.  Then he showed me the hole in his blouse where it had hit.  The hole was still torn and ragged.  In the meantime I was opening what I thought was his Bible.

It was a deck of cards.

I can hear that fine American lad’s laughter yet.  It rang like the bells of the old cathedral itself, in the shadow of which we stood.  His laughter startled the group of old men playing checkers on a park bench into forgetting their game and joining in the fun.  Everybody stopped to see what the fun was about.  That lad had a good one on the secretary, and he was enjoying it as much as the secretary himself.