Omaha daily bee., 1917-06-22
By BEATRICE FAIRFAX.

"How shall | do my bit?' write
Anna and Mabel and Zaidee mot to
mention all the other means and ex-
tremes of alphabet and station). 81
am twenty-five and have a good home
and enough money, so that | am
nicely taken care OF and have never
needed to do any work. But now
that our country is at war ! am ready
to do my share. Shall | take up
nursing3 =.
DO you think it would be good
plan for me to prepare TO go to the
front with the Red Cross? Or course,
| suppose there are number of other
things you can suggest, but nursing
and farming seem much the most i'm
portant tasks. Will you advise me
how to go about one or the other"
Sometimes investigation discloses
the fact that Anna is a puny little
creature who has been treated like
a hothouse plant. | may find that
Mabel is subject to nervous head
aches if she gets into the hot sun-
light and that Zaidel tainted once
when she tried to wash a cut in her
brothers hand,
At least half the girls who want
TO be nurses or "farmerites" are
physically and temperamentally unfit
for the job. The romance of tilling
the soil and of making crops grow
in rapid and intelligent rotation is
we'll worth the while of any woman
who brings the proper equipment Of
health and muscle to her work.
Nursing is a glorious task-if you
are fitted to be nurse. But if roll
ing bandages bores you, the menial
tasks which must be done in any sick
room make you i'll, and washing up
hospital corridors with disinfectant is
not a part Of your picture of nursing,
you had better give that up at once,
even if you arc five feet eight and
weigh $50.
Farming is not matter of cute lit
tie overalls, nor is the chief factor in
nursing wearing Red Cross uniform
with charm and distinction. You have
to be fit, temperamentally and phys
ically fit, in order to do either well.
And of the girls who long to show
their patriotism and their loyalty to
their country and to "do their bit," |
fear that not one in ten is fit to cul-
tivate the soil effectively or nurse the
wounded in any manner whatever.
Rolling bandages, buying Liberty
bonds, arranging benefits for the
wounded are all splendid things to
which women must continue their
generous and intelligent contribution.
But how about the girl who has no
money to spend, who has no social
pinnacles from which to arrange
matinees and bazaars, who is not at
iliated with any society which is do
ing big things, and who is not yet
trained for nay sort Of service? She
thinks at once OF the hospital or the
farm and prepares to take a course
which will make her fit to work in
one or the other. For her | have a
suggestion to offer.
In any large city there are from
one hundred to one thousand girls
who want to do their bit. And the
small town may have its offering of
dHy WHClC lOlll OnC " OilC Hullhi GU
Jealous but unframed young women.
The most practical thing they can do
is to become Office workers. After
the draft there will be numerous
vacancies in the clerical forces of all
our large offices. Not in the melo-
drama of making munitions or oper-
ating large machines, but in the
everyday work of our business Offices
lies the chance for the girl who wants
conscientiously to do her bit"
The hard-working. clever girl who
will apply herself unremittingly can
hope to learn typewriting and stenog-
raphy in two months. 1t takes the
average girl from five to eight
months-but in war times any of us
ought to be ready to make an honest
effort to speed up bit.
There will be in Offices such posi-
tions as telephone operators, file
clerks, bookkeepers. secretaries and
all the routine Office "jobs" requiring
either intelligence and Willingness
plus no training or great deal OF pa
tience and perseverance plus a little