BILL'S TOMBSTONE
soldier's mother, but you can do nothing when people's sons are shot. It is the most dreadful thing to want to do something for people who are unhappy, and not to know what to do.
It was Noël who thought of what we could do at last.
He said, "I suppose they don't put up tombstones to soldiers when they die in war. But there—I mean—"
Oswald said, "Of course not."
Noël said, "I dare say you'll think it's silly, but I don't care. Don't you think she'd like it if we put one up to him? Not in the church-yard, of course, because we shouldn't be let, but in our garden, just where it joins on to the church-yard?"
And we all thought it was a first-rate idea.
This is what we meant to put on the tombstone:
"Here lies
Bill Simpkins
Who died fighting for Queen
and Country.
"A faithful son,
A son so dear,
A soldier brave
Lies buried here.
Then we remembered that poor, brave Bill was really buried far away in the Southern hemisphere, if at all.
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