The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1918-09-13
WORKERS ARE CLOSEST TO
THE TRENCHES.
GIRLS Share MEMS DANGER
Serve, as Mothers and Sisters Would,
Gould They Be With Their Big Boys
in the Fields of France
(By Mrs. Harold MIles)

some hastily constructed tables,
some cooking utensils, three Or four
cheery-faced Salvation Army lassies
singing at their work of frying
doughnuts, making pies and tending
to big caldrons of hot coffee and
chocolate. Picture these same lassies
attired in khaki, with natty little
trench caps topping their heads,
steel helmets, Carnegie derbies,'
the boys call them. lying within
arms reach on the table and gas
masks at "alert," suspended by the
strap around the neck
This nut in this little village held
by our boys, is in the main street.
with house here and there missing
as the result of German shells, the
one Just two doors away beinS a
mass of crumbled ruins rhe hui
itself IS whole more or less, and was
crowded to the doors when | Went n.
Several poilus were playing checkers
as we're some of our men. Others
We're writing letters and reading
new spapCrs. There was a group OF
them around piano, much the worse
Off fer the wear, and another around
the sTamaphCne. Both instruments
We're playing like mad, and, OF course
different tunes, which is usually the
case when soldiers are running
things, and this is what they were
doing at the Salvation Army nut
They we're running their own show,
amusing themselves in Their own
way, owning their own cantecn.
No one was making polite CONVEX
sation with them; no one was, teach
ing them either the history or the
language Of the French; no one was
lecturing to them on the aims Of the
Doubtless there are times when all
these things take place there, but if
so, l arrived in a period of lull in
such intellectual bonn Dardments, the
men were enjoying themselves in
their own way.
When I saw them as they wero
when ! came in, thought | had hap
pened on one reason for it, each one
of them seemed to feel that he own
ed the whole place And that means
a lot when a billet in a French vii
lage, a bed in a loft, is the only
place you can call your own.
There was, apparently, no one else
running the hut, but, of course there
was. An officer who was with me
discovered one of the girls in charge
and introduced me. She was not
very tall, rather thin, but seemed
very strong What you really no.
ticed about her was the steady way
she looked at you with her gray
eyes. You could imagine no man
forgetting himself if she looked at
him in that steady way. And you
could imagine great many men
kept steady by it.
She represented more the type CT
the war worker that | should like
to see in France than almost any
WoHldu nave UlSl. fOT. 10 De
frank. l find most of the American
women working in France either too
pretty and too conscious of it and
their uniforms, or else so obviously
picked out because they are not pref
ty that it is painful. This girl was
distinctly good looking, and she had
on uniform, but all you noticed
was that she was we'll bred, well-ed-
ucated, and that her dress was per-
fectly adapted to what she was doing
which is everything, from cooking
all sorts of things for the boys,
mending their clothes, taking care
of the wounded, to conducting prayer
meetings.
When l asked them how they lived
in such a place Astounding with hard
ships and inconvenience, they said
they had rooms in the village.
I'VE eat here in this little ROOM"
they said, showing me a tiny place
partitioned off from the main part
of the hut. Then | felt | had come
upon a second season for the popu-
larity of the Salvation Army. Their
workers share more precisely the
conditions under which the soldiers
live than any others ! have seen.
They live in billets no more COM
Portable than those Of the men, they
prepare their own food and it is no
better and perhaps not even as good
as the men get. They are ION the
level with them, whether it be with
officer or private, and rank cuts 70
figure around Salvation Army hut.
They are not Blessed Damosels
STOPPING down to the men from out
of the vault Of some higher sphere.
They are there to serve; to make
the burden lighter for the boys.
While | was there the Colonel of the
regiment came in. He walked
straight into the kitchen and the
girl with the steady eyes asked him
how he felt. He evidently had been
i'll and was just able to be about.
She treated him just like she would
have treated a poilu, one of our men
or an officer Of higher or lower rank,
yet there was the touch of home"