The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-08-29
Salvation Army Girls Hold
First Place in Esteem
Of Fighters.
FORM QUEUES FOR PIES
Mrs. Sheppard, Home From
France, Describes Life Back
of the Lines.


boys like the Y. NJ. C. A. workers and
the Red Cross nurses. but it's the SAL
walton Army lasses whom they esteem
topnotch, A No. 1 queens.
The reason is now clear. The qualih-
cation for an 8. A. lassie to stay at the
front. on which she must make good or
her organization recalls her. Is that she
must be able to make n certain number
Of pies day. Three OF her-for they
work In shifts Of three, one mixing and
shaping pie crust, one preparing the flll-
ing and one attending the baking-three
of her must turn out $50 appetlzing
pies like mother made each twenty-tour
hours. The soldiers do the rest. They
are divided into quarters and handed
out to our boys. and the latter give them
no quarter.
This toothsome tale was told yester-
day at S. A. headquarters. 122 West
Fourteenth street by Brigadier Mrs. Cor
Mrs. Brigadier) Joseph Sheppard. who
Just returned from a three months trip
on the front in the capacity Of pie and
doughnut inspector.
French Soldiers Amazed.
81 went all along the front. through
the Toul sector, and as near the fight
Ing lines as Briquanville. which is two
miles from the trenches" Mrs. Shep-
pard said. III heard OF a girl who
wasn't turning out her quota of pies or
doughnuts. l hunted her out and showed
her how to speed up. The French sol.
oilers were perfectly amazed at our dex-
terity in frying doughnuts: They'd call
1t juggling. They used to stand around
and watch US. and exclaim, LIE jongleur"
We weren't allowed to sell anything to the
French soldiers-the French Government
forbids it-but sometimes we'd smuggle a
sizzling hot doughnut to polu who
looked specially longing and wistful.
"A real quick doughnut fryer can do
$500 In a day, somebody else mixing the
dough. Those are experts. ] did 100
myself one day. The soldier boys made
them and cut them out. only had a
little French stove TO work on. In most
OF our huts there are big army ranges.
and of course it's easier to work on those.
The soldiers think it's the greatest
fun to help us cook. They cut the wood
and carry water and mix dough. and. I
sSii soes ooiic N tHOsc DoyS nave become
the greatest little pie and doughnut
makers you ever saw. They'll surely be
prize husbands when they lone back,
unless they're all snapped up by the
French girls who have had the privilege
OF seeing them cook"
Boys Line Up for Treat.
Quick as the doughnuts leave the
boiling lard and the pies come out of the
oven, Mrs. Sheppard says. they are
handed out TO the boys in khaki. who
are always waiting in lines. sometimes
three blocks long, for the good old home
made dainties that the Salvation Army
sells. Rates, by the way, are cheap.
They sell three big, fat doughnuts' for
half franc, which Is not quite dime.
Where In New York could you get three
fat doughnuts for dime? Mrs Shep-
pard wanted to know.
In the daytime the soldiers come to
the salvation Army huts. but at night,
when long trains OF munition wagons
and guns and supplies go winding along
the dark roads the pie and doughnut
girls go out to the men with their loads
OF good things. They carry large
caldrons of steaming coffee. great bas-
kets OF pies and the hot fried cakes,
and feed the tired men. 1t takes pretty
husky girls TO do the work. Mrs. Shep-
pard says. No fragile creatures are
wanted. AT night the food is all given
away. for no money changes hands be-
tween sunset and sunrise.
The shipments OF the Salvation Army
from the four Atlantic ports from which
they send amount to $4,000 day.
One thousand two hundred and ten
workers over there distribute these
things, So per cent. OF them women and
girls The men who go to France for
the salvation Army are too old to fight.
or are incepacitated In some way.
Two Sons to Enter service.
Mrs. Sheppard, by the way. has two
sons In Boston. her home, who are
drafted and will soon leave to go into the
service, A third son is in the Starvation
Army headquarters here. Mrs Shep-
pard's husband, a BriSader in the SAL
walton Army. is seriously i'll in Boston,
and that is the reason of her returning.
She has been thirty-four years in the
Salvation Army.
II believe the German soldiers are
sick of the war" Mrs Sheppard said
yesterday. "They come crawling into
our lines on their hands and knees to
be taken prisoners. One wounded Ger
man I saw In the dressing station at
Toul where his shot thigh was being
dressed, said to us that IL he could only
get his wife and children he would he
glad never to see Germany again. He
said he had found out that his children
had been taken from the mother and
put to tending sheep. The wife is doing
farm work.
81 know that sometimes the soldiers
are chained to the guns to keep them
from running away, Rut they don't
want to be taken prisoners by the
French. because they have done such
dreadful things 10 France that they
fear retaliation. They don't mind be-
ing taken by the Americans or English.
No knowledge OF Atrocities.
~ have no personal knowledge of
atrocities by Germans on the French.
but an American soldier told me he saw
in village a Frenchman suspended by
his feet, with his body split open as
an OK would be.
Trench life IL a strain on our boys,
I have seen them Just unstrung when
they came back from the front-their
hands trembling. their faces palld. I
know one Salvation Army worker near
the front whose hair turned white In
n few months. But It's funny how fat
our workers do keep" Mrs. Sheppard
added. They work like dogs. and they
Just get fat right along"
Letters and candy are what our boys
need most. The hardest thing they
have to bear Is the infrcquency OF mail,
Owing 10 the moving about and the
difficulties OF transportation, a soldier
sometimes doesn't hear from his family
for weeks, perhaps months, Once I
came on lad in khaki crying, and he
told me he hadn't heard from his peo-
Pile In many weeks, and that day he
had read in an American paper of the
death OF his youngest sister. I'm go