Page:This side the trenches, with the American Red cross (IA thissidetrenches00desc).pdf/21



The very first thing that happens to the folks at home is the going of the man to war. The fact that he is no longer with them is, perhaps, the hardest thing they have to bear.

The members of most families, living together so long and so intimately, having the same blood and the same household traditions, become as much a part of one another as do the various members of the human body. Each one means something to the rest. Thus, the man in the service may have been the business manager and the financier of the home. He may have been the family musician or the artistic member of the household. To him the rest may have looked for the organization of their picnics, parties, and other good times, or he may have been the one who saw the funny side of things and who could be depended upon to bring home the latest jokes or the tales of those amusing adventures that seemingly happen often to some people and seldom or not at all to others.

It is this relationship existing between person and person, between friend and friend, that people have in mind when they say of somebody, "I feel quite lost without him." Would it indeed not be surprising if, on the other hand, the soldier or the sailor did not often wonder, "how are they getting along without me?"