The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-25
AMERICAN SOLDIERS
 'HUNGER' FOR SMILE
 OF GOOD WOM N

VI N V " @ bS VI fEt hz
 Somewhere in France, September 2S. Correspondence. )-"More to do and more huts to do it in;' that is the soldiers cry all along the line.
 More Young Mems Christian association huts are a vital need and more workers for the huts already standing. The aver age Young Mems Christian association worker in France tolls from is to 20 hours daily Up early, sweeping out the hut, carrying away the empty ginger ale bot ties, filling ink wells, scrubbing the ta- bles Then he must arrange the days programme, after which he opens the canteen, snatching such a lunch as is possible when the lunch hour arrives.
 He is still presiding at the counter while he runs the athletic sports in the afternoon, and he may have a class in French, history, penmanship or arithme- tic to conduct meanwhiles. The evening finds him with a hut full of men to en- tertain and keep busy and he has his books to balance when the men have gone to bed.
 His hut is up straight, white road, shining silver under twin rows of Lom- bardy populars. To the rear sleeps or seems to sleep tiny village, tiled or matched, and quiet. Nothing could be more foreign, more un-American, more French. Ahead, in field, a few steps off the road, a black bulk rises, big building with peaked roof. It is amazedly full of men-men at tables, writing letters, reading magazines, play ing checkers-Rembrandt men, whose faces are lighted by the yellow flicker of candles planted on rails along the walls men in some sort of uniform, and at the far end group about an older man who sings with them.
 It's Way Down Upon the Suwanee River they are singing, this bir of the American army and this bit of the Amer ican '. M. C. Ain France.
 In quiet room at the back, a Y. NJ. c. A. worker is teaching French to a class of American soldiers. In cor ner, behind a counter, another worker is serving gingerale, crackers and choco- late. conspicuous sign announces q track meet and a baseball game for to- morrow There is another, even more prominent, and most of the men are foi- lowing it's admonitions. It reads:
 You promised mother a letter'-write it now!
 Other entertainers come to enliven the evening and other soldiers come. The hut was full Now it overflows. Some soldiers can neither force an entrance nor find room to see between the heads that fill the windows. They have te go away-and there's the pity, for there's another night picture in the vicinity ot the American camps. It is Rembrandt picture, too
 It is back there in the tiny sleepy village. A curving street leads to a hotel that is tightly shuttered and closed against air and sound. Down badly smelling hall one stumbles upon door that opens upon a narrow room that is filled with a blare of lamplght, and the mixed fumes of oil and undigested drink, and from dirt.
 The room is full, not of regular peas ant customers long ago gone to bed but with boyS-American boys-boys 3or whom there was no room in the hut They sit at tables dragged from all over the village to accommodate the influx of unexpected custom. Here and there among them is a girl. Not the sort ot girl that boys knew back home. but the offscouring of little towns thrown upon the highway and creeping by night into the only spot in France that would give them shelter.
 That is the inn taproom as it is in hall dozen villages about the American camp, and no exercise of military au IllOIlty udS yet piCNCIlOu II IT Oili os being. The officers are doing their best but they say the Y. NJ. c. A. must help The French authorities second their dec laration. Trained observers of socia conditions say that the efforts of ths American officers are admirable, but tht one chance of social salvation for thN weaker and more lonely American sol dier in France lies in the hands of thu Y. M. c. A.
 Txra sitting in Y. M c. A. hut. Pinch me, will you? cried one. q wanta know whether Tn dreamn' or not. If I ain't. jest go away an let me sit here, sos can look owe those guys heads to the canteen. don | want no chocolate or I don't want n' seegars. I jest wanta look at a decen woman again. T jest wanta watch tha | little dame while she passes out tn stuff to them blokes up there. !. Did yo' pipe that ? She talks English, too--rea American! I'm goin up an buy some pin. Mebbe she'll smile at me, too.'' "Well," said a sad-eyed soldier from l the middle west, T like it well enough here and of course I'm going to de my duty, only wish we either hadn't so much time to spare or else there were enough Y. M. c. As to keel us all busy. The Sundays are the worst Military works light then, ant
 
 | a long one.'
 The T. M. c. A. workers who arc
 already accomplishing a great deal
 though only a small part of what l there is to be done, give their time and strength unbegrudingly, and many
 of them were not trained for such ex- acting work.
 1 Among the workers in the field is
 William sharp. son of the Ambassa | fr | Paris is Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt. Jr. l who has been conducting nightly
 classes in French for American sol | diers. Nearly all are overworkins
 themselves, with facilities and supple: i that are inadequate, and in. quarter; that are insufficient to accommodate tt the numbers of soldiers who would I frequent them if they could. l uu : NJc+snv1,c WooEnocs