Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1918-09-12
ALL YANKEE BOYS ARE
JUST BIG BROTHERS"
..
Salvation Army Lass Tells How
Hard 1t Is to Part With
New Friends.
BY MISS GLADYS MCINTYRE.
Salvation Army doughgirl in France
Written for the United Press.


With the American BOYS at the
Front.-(by NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. are a
Dig problem. AT least, they are out
here on the front. It's hard to keen
from letting your interest in people
worry YOU.
Ii has been harder tilaa usual for us,
l think. because our acouaintances are
continually changing. Troops are all
ways on the move, and we have stayed
quite q long time in each Of the To-
cations we We're in. So we We're never
With any regiment permanently, usu-
ally just long enough to make a bunch
of good friends from WHOM we hated to
part.
We nave almost decided that it
doesn't pa, to make friends. No that
they are not wonderful to have and a
lot OF joy, but that it is so hard to
see them so, especially when you know
the danger they are in all the time.
It's strange the way we make friends
out here, anyway. When u new outfit
comes In town, we are always feeling
as though the bottom has dropped
out OF things, naturally, because our
old friends have pulled III the night
before. Then a few of the new ones
will drop around the kitchen, and ask
ii there is anything they can do TO help
us.
That is where friends are first made.
usually. i'll the kitchen or at the wood
pile. Sometimes it's over the stove,
where the boys ask us TO let them dip
doughnuts. Then there Is usually a
gradual growth without any effort on
anyone's part, and some acquaintance
become friends others Just stay
acquaintance.
Usually its the home folky sort tina
comes around and makes friends. They
usually want to talk, and it seems to
do them good just to get stories told
to someone. We always like to listen.
1t never takes them long to come
around to the girls they left behind,
and they always tell us of them.
You cannot help liking these chaps
who want to talk of their sweethearts.
They're always devoted, and they carry
pictures with them, which they always
like to show. 1t is interesting to see
the kinds Of girls they have all picked
put. and they are never just what YOU
expect.
These men usually take u big broth
erly interest in us. and their attention
Is sometimes amusing. I've had as
man as five lectures from different
big brothers in enc day, all of them
keen to advise us.
Usually, these big brothers tell us
to go home. They say it is no place
for us, SO near the lines, though they
all tell us how much they enjoy hav-
ing us there, and how much they like
d~oughnuts. But they would rather
have us home, they say, and get along
without doughnuts.
But we think otherwise. We want to
stay.
When we left our old division we
thought we had lost all the friends we
had on this side of the world. If we
were ever discouraged, it was then.
irene n l were both enthusiastic to
get a new hut started, but we could
not forget the friends we had left,
and who were to go soon to q far more
dangerous part of the line.
We still miss them terribly. but a
very few days has shown us that there
are prospective big brothers" every
where. We had scarcely o into
u new quarters when the most faith
erly gray-haired old colonel you ever
saw calne in to see US. Tle offered us
any help at his command and comes in
twice every day to see that all is going
we'll. He is almost too fatherly in the
way he hovers over us, for he puts
restrictions on where we can go. But
they are for our good and we appreci-
ate his interest. A sergeant soon turned
up with a wife at home and a faculty
for housework, and big brothers are
growing in number. Americans are
pretty generally of the "big brother
type, we have found.