Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-08-14
SISTER SUSIE SEWS
SOCKS FOR SOLDIERS
While Buddy's Buying Blouses
For Best Girls. Shopping In
France Cheers Him Up
SIDELIGHT OF THE WAR

When Yankee Doodle goes to town to
< buy a bit of French finery for his loved
one across the wide waters all France
I loves him and gives him of her best,
\ forgetting that the boy in khaki is a
relative of the American tourist with
gold-dripping hands who was such an
easy mark in the days before the war.
( II is not all fighting and misery in
France and the sun never shines more
4 brightly than when an American boy
! fares forth to buy souvenir for his
/ sweetheart. For there come moments
of lull in the fighting and when the
soldier is at rest he starts thinking of
the girl back home. Then the blues
force him to talk about it. One young
corporal confided to Y. NJ. c. A. girl
canteen worker that he wanted to buy
something for his girl"
"Blouses," she suggested. Cheap
here and yuite unlike ours"
What material?" he demanded,
Frightening
silk. crepe de chine. embroidered
/ lawn"
A mess sergeant, who had been pre-
! tending to read. suddenly emerged
brazenly to demand more details. He
| had not admitted that he was home
sick or had any interest in blouses.
The corporal was enraptured with the
idea and enlisted the ~" girl as his
shopper.
4 She had a real good time next day
pricing and examining in four shops
before returning triumphantly waving
the package. The corporal seized it
/ eagerly, while the mess sergeant, from
a doorway, impatiently demanded to
see the blouse.
wait a minute" protested the cor
poral-owner unwrapping the paper
and drawing out the thin ecru stuff
with it's fine embroideries and its lit
/ tie tassels and crochetted buttons. He
held it up gently, reverently.
"What're you so slow for? Let a
fellow see it," commanded the ser
geant.
That's the back" explained the cor
poral, exhibiting the blouse.
THE back" scoffed the sergeant
Yes. it is. See the collar? Those
I
Guess you're right" grudgingly adj
mitted the sergeant. Can you beat
/ it. See here, Angelo. Like this?'
Angelo speaks no English. She is
kitchen helper, not lacking in hui
NOR. She shrugged.
tires bien. Hier Jen al achete un
pour vingt-deux francs"
ha M inc
corning the price of twenty-five francs,
''all embroidered and everything" and
asked if she considered this blouse
pretty.
"C'est MAGNITUDE ct ce nest pas cher, -
replied Angelo.
Where do you get 'em?" demanded
the sergeant, while the corporal clam
ored for an hour to buy another. Even
| the cook, am American from Italy,
caught the blouse fever and was all
/ eagerness that evening to have words
with the young women of the Red Tri-
angle.
Il show you," he cried. Buy it my
self. Here, you open, my hands
dirty"
blouse with wide blue collar and blue
loops and buttons, one to make any
girl happy.
The corporal joyously boosted he
had bought similar one, of cerise
hue, but the sergeant was depressed.
He sadly exposed his purchase, beau
tiful crepe de chine.
why. that's beautiful" exclaimed
/ the ''Y'' girl.
But it amt silk" mourned the un-
happy sergeant.
i In one sentence that young woman
had assured him that it most assuredly
was silk. of a different but equally de-
.sirable kind. and had made that non
com superlatively happy, that being
! just another Of the many ways in
which the ~ puts heart into our