Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-09-03
WEARING GAS MASK
OVER A COOK STOVE
May Appeal To Housewives
While Making Dainties For
Boys In Front Line
THE WOMAN FURTHEST IN

hear. then, about the women who are
cooking and baking forsth American
boys with their helmets and gas masks
on the shelf. next the baking powder
can. They will learn of the casual
heroines who see nothing remarkable
I in making hot chocolate in shacks
where the rain and the snow come in
on them through fresh shell holes in
the roof.
One of the women people will hear
about will be Mrs. Clara Simmons.
She is as close to the front line as
any woman is permitted to go. For
many days, during the active fighting
just over the hill from her. she was
the only woman in the entire area.
That didn't bother her at all.
The boys wanted hot chocolate, and
she could make it. So there you are.
And there she was.
She is a little bit of America, of
American womanhood, dropped right
down in the middle of the fighting
zone. She looks more like home to
the boys than anything in the world,
except letter. She has no pictur-
esque ideas about carrying culture
and uplift TO the soldiers. She's there
to work for them.
Before the war, she lived in lit
tie place near Boston, called Grafton.
She is a graduate of an art school,
and she attended Radcliffe. She is
midway between thirty and forty, and
she is short and plump. with nose
glasses, and a nice, amused smile
And she certainly can make hot
chocolatei
When the United States went into
the war, she and her husband talked
a lot about how they could help.
They might have stayed comfortably
in their Massachusetts home. But
Y. M. c. A. for Russia He was in
Petrograd when the counter revolu-
tion occurred, and, with many other
Americans, he made a hurried exit at
the last moment. About all he man
aged to take away with him was a tea
pot and samovar, as he swung
aboard one of the last trains on the
trans-Siberian.
Today he is keeping house with a
Chinese servant in yladivostok He is
still with the Y NJ. c. A., and his par
ticular job is caring for the refugees
who need food and shelter on their
way out. That's where the teapot and
the samovar are working overtime.
After he left for Russia Mrs. Sim
mons made her own plans She told
the Y. M. c. A. in New York that she
could sew and cook, and that she
wanted to work. Before she knew it,
she was on a ship bound for France.
She landed last October.
She works with huge mixing bowl
half full of pulverized chocolate, and
seven or eight open cans of con-
densed milk on the table On the
rickety stove where the old fireplace
used to be, great kettle OF hot water
is simmering. She stirs and pours,
and pours and stirs, till the air of the
little shack is as fragrant as that of
a candy store at home.
A convoy of camions rumbIes past
her door They are almost at the end
of their journey. German territory
isn't half dozen kilometres away.
Mrs. Simmons knows that, of course,
but she huns, under her breath, at
her work. Then she glances at her
wrist watch, and smiles. She will be
ready for the boys when they come.
While her chocolate is simmering
she opens her boxes of cookies and
raisins. She arranges heaps of cake
chocolate and cans of peaches and
pineapple. She puts out her cartons
of cigarettes and cigars and smoking
tobacco-yes, and of chewing tobacco,
for she knows as well as any one that
some of her soldiers are posted in
places where the smallest flash of fire
would draw bullets.
Even before the hot chocolate is
quite ready, the boys begin to arrive.
They come in tin hats with gas masks
hanging at their sides. Her own he'll
met and mask are on the shelf behind
her.
Hot chocolate ready?' the first one
asks.
"All ready" she says, as she stirs
it with her long spoon. She fills one
of the tin cups from the mantelplace.
"Um-m-m!" says the youngster.
That's good and thick. Give us a
package of cookies
He takes his tin cup and his cook
les to an empty packing box in the
corner, sits down, and feasts slowly
and luxuriously. Another boy is at
the board that serves as a counter
Down into the big kettle goes the long
spoon, another package of cookies is
handed across the counter, another
packing box has an occupant.
Already there is a line reaching to
the door, out into the little yard, and
curling itself this way and that. Some
of the boys take their tin cups and
cookies into the open, and sit on the
ground with their backs against the
shack. From time to time they go
back to the counter to have their tin
cups refilled
Some of the boys stop to gossip,
when the edge is taken off their thirsts
and hungers.
Remember Bill Johnson" they ask
Mrs Simmons. She does. He was
the boy who always took three cups of
chocolate
He won't any more for awhile, -
they tell her. Stopped one in the leg
last night.
~Oh, that's too bad" she says, just
the way she would say it at home If
she heard that Iohnnio had tho