The Bridgeport times and evening farmer. (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1918-1924, 1918-02-21
WORD FROM HOME
GREATLY CHEERS.
BOYS IN TRENCHES

trenches
This is the message brought back
to America by Captain H. H. Pearson,
the first Canadian to go to France
after war was declared, and the first |
to see service with Kitchener's army. |
Later he was wounded when a bomb |
struck the Young Mems Christian AS
ISOLATION headquarters at Belgian Po-
peringhe, of which he was in charge.
He has seen hundreds of men go over
the top and a lesser number come |
back again. He has been over the I
top and come back again. Both from
experience and from observation he
knows what it is that puts heart into |
soldiers when they stand near the
edge of No Mans Land, with the
shells bursting around them.
For two years, Capt. Pearson, as |
commissioned officer of the Cana
dian army, has supervised the Young
Mems Christian Association work
along the entire Canadian front in
France. He was wounded twice and
:'gassed" and has now been sent home
by the Canadian army to tell the folks
back home of conditions lover there"
So Captain Pearson, a big, modest
|
he had never heard of a world-war,
but with the remembering eyes that
all men have when they come back
from it, has a good deal to say of
woman's plain duty in war time.
Write to Him and Do 1t Often
write to them!" he urges. eff you
have a relative or friend at the front,
write to him, and do it often. Let
tiers from strangers don't count, of
course, but the others-no one can
say how much they matter. Why do
you suppose that the Young Mems
Christian Association spends thous
ands of dollars every month Tor pa
per and ink? 1t isn't so much because
we are thinking of the homefolk;
they must look out for themselves in
time of war. We want those letters
written so that the mothers and the
} sisters and the wives and the sweet
, hearts back home may answer them
as soon as possible. It's the answers
we are interested in, because we know
how those letters in the familiar
l handwriting are going to help win
the battle
, Americans will never see the most
terrible part of the war, Captain
e Pearson declared.
e 1.-The most terrible part of the war
+ was that first winter of 1.-THE end of
1914, the beginning of 1915" he said.
During that first winter or the war,
c when the enemy marched against us
with machine. guns and all the mod
ern instruments of warfare, and we
= had no guns, no ammunition, nothing
: but sheer strength of will to go on,
. it was really the letters from home
Il that held the lines for US. We did it
because the home-folk expected us to
j do it, and said so in their letters.
c you may say that this is all senti-
ment. Well, this is a war of senti-
e ment. It's sentiment that took us
: ever there to fight, and it is sentiment
Il that is taking you Americans.
Anyhow, soldiers are like that. I've
G known some of them that haven't
l, gotten a word from home in all the
t time they have been gone, more than
r three years now 1t may have been
a because their women were slackers,
it and it may have been because their
Y letters had gone astray. They were
IS a very different lot, as a rule, from
n the chaps who got letters from home
regularly, and they went into the
a fight with different spirit.
~ Sometimes boy who hadn't heard
q from home for two years or more
- would get his letters at last, a lot OF
- them in a bunch. You ought to have
- seen his face when he saw his name
- on the envelope, and knew that those
- letters were for him! You ought to
70 have seen how many times he got
those letters out and re-read them
Z when he thought no one was looking!
i You ought to have seen the vim with
g which he went into the next battle!
Tell Him the News
What kind of letters should the
home-folk write to the soldier at the
front? Literary quality isn't the thing
# most needful in them, of course. Per
- haps the best of them all are the
- ones packed full of little homely de-
- tails-accounts of the new neighbors
y. across the street, and of the words the
re- baby has learned to say, and of how
~ Jimmy is growing out of all his
clothes, and getting to look more like
his daddy every day-and if he JUS
grows up to be half so good a mar
it will be all right. These are the
letters that are oftenest re-read by
: the soldier before he goes over the
top, just commonplace letters tha
tell of everyday happenings haci
home, and of the love and the trus
that are in keeping for him there.
Don't Blur Letters With Tears
Certain other types of letter ough
never TO be sent to the men at the
front One is that written by the sell
fish woman whose closely writer
pages are blurred with her tears, ant
taken up with her own sorrow in hav'
ing her soldier so far from home, ant
her plea for him to come back at onct
since everything is going wrong with
out him. One of the Young Men!
Christian Association secretaries il
France tells of a promising youns
chap who came back from leave will
every appearance of having beer
drinking heavily.
"You see," the young soldier tolG
the Young Mems Christian Associa
ton man, 81 got a letter from m!
mother, and she was so worried abou
my going wrong over here, and 81
sure that I had inherited alcoholic
tendencies from my father, that go
desperately blue, and went on a spre'
to forget all about it,
Moral Conditions Are Good
Moral conditions in the army ar
great deal better than is common
ly reported, Captain Pearson said. NJ
mother, he thought, needed to worr.
more about her soldier-son on thi
score than she would if he were any
where else. The army is as safe
place for boy as can be found. Blu