Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-11-18
CANTEEN LIFE IN5FRANCE.

No one in this country knows can.
teen life in France better than Mrs.
Margaret Laing, who lived at 56O9
Woodlawn Avenue. Chicago, before she
went overseas last year in the Red
Cross service. She served four months
at Epernay, an American Red Cross
canteen for French, and three months
at Nevers, an American Red Cross can
teen for Americans. What she tells
must make every mother of boy over
there feel that she and other Red Gross
workers are their special Wears, doing
as they would do, if they could be
there.
II cannot begin to tell what it is all
like" said Mrs. Laing, when visiting
Central Division headquarters the
other day. 1T is the kind of work that
gets one up and keeps one up till all
track Of the regular time for being
up or asleep is lost. But / am going
back, because can do it, and 1 would
MT miss it for the world.
The Red Cross canteens over there,
like those over here, are only for men
in transit 1t is stream of boys,
boys, boys all of the time. But they
never seem strange because my expert
ence has taught me that our boys are
all very much alike. They all love
pudding mo matter from what it is
made.
1.-The canteen meals are more or less
regulation affairs. They have to be.
We get certain supplies from this coun--
try and few from France. They are
all naturally the things most nourish-
ing and most easily sent, so that deli
cacies are rare.
What is Served.
I'VE usually serve three things for
breakfast eggs, bread, and coffee.
And as the battle-tired and wounded
come back from the front lines, it al
most makes one weep to see the way
they clean their trays.
For, although bread, eggs and COT
fee may not sound like an unusual
breakfast, an incident that happened
at Nevers will show better than any
thing can say how glad the boys are
of that little change from what they
call their s'iron rations'- to-
matoes, corned beef, and bareback. We
had a wire from an officer, telling us
he would bring some men to breakfast
next morning, but that twenty of them
were SO badly wounded they would
have to come in ambulances
80 in the gray of the next morning,
we were on the lookout, ready with our
usual breakfast, when in came the
men, some of them SO haggard and
worn that it didn't seem as if they
could walk. Many could not carry,
their trays from the counter to the
table.
II looked around and said to the
officer, AS soon as the ambulance comes
= ~ .t /. d.
with the twenty we will serve them
"'Oh,' he said, there are only four
to come in ambulances after all The
rest, when they heard we were COM
ing to the canteen for breakfast, got
up and hObbled-heaven knows how
they were SO anxious to get here
For dinner we give them some
meat, vegetables, and dessert, usually
a pudding-not much, compared with
the buildings we have over here. But
when a bread pudding or dried fig
pudding or prune pudding with an
egg meringue on top comes out Of the
oven, the sight Of the boys faces and
what they say, always gives us a
thrill. How their eyes do shine!
There is also another luxury that !
sometimes have given them,-frietl
bread-what we call French toast.
They do not have it in France. So
when l have had good deal Of bread
left, have dipped it into batter, fried
1t golden brown, and put slice on
each mans tray for breakfast. When
those trays came back, couldn't have
found crumb with miscr0scope.
Beds Crowded.
"All night long the boys come for
suppers and sometimes are so badly
hurt that we keep them at the canteen
to rest up. At Nevers we had very lit.
tie room. The barracks were always
crowded. Besides, there was one
apartment With five beds for officers.
There was also another cot, we called
it a hospital cot, and there was corri-
dor leading from the officers apart
ment to the Office. Sometimes when
we have had unusually bad cases, we
have filled the officers room and the
cot, and then have packed straw mat
tresses on the floor Of the corridor and
laid the boys there all in row to
Sleep