The evening world., 1919-03-05

VI oh NhV llOhNs
curtains? Not a scrap Of any sort OF
cloth could be bought for miles around.
Finally. a friendly English surgeon
gave us a roll OF bandagc cloth. We
stencilled 1t with the blue paint-and
there were our precious curtains.
The heart and centre OF hut is
something TO eat or course, the
boys had their rations, and | should
like to say just here that Americans
in Northern Russia have received
good food and plenty of 1t, also plenty
of thick, warm underclothing and
blankets. Still, home hut must have
something extra in the way of food.
After much effort, we obtained from
the Allied Food Commission an allow
ance OF thirty pools, or 1,2OO pounds
OF -four month, and ten poods. or 300
pounds, of sugar. We had nothing
else except n little oatmeal-no choco-
late, no butter, no eggs. no milk
nothing! But we made oatmeal
cookies, and a kind of little cake
which doesn't take much sugar, and
we got along.
"Of course, we had entertainments
at the hostess hut. We taught the
Russian girls to dance, for We were
organizing them into g,i scouts and
ding all we co..i for them well as
for our men. We gave dances at the
hut and the American soldiers danced
with Russian girls and with us. We
got up 'sings'-aftcr much persuo sion
and many visits we managed TO OBJ
tain a piano from a Russian woman
who lived in AZ, hangcl,
Then besides the work at the
hostess hut We established a head
quarters down on the railroad front,
n place about II vcrsts-a yerst is
two-thlrds Of a mile-from Archangei
itself. Several tracks met there. and
hundreds OF American soldiers lived
there all winter in box car. We got
a car, put n bench across one end
and n bunk in the other end, and one
OF our workers stayed there day and
night. We took this duty in turn,
each woman spending three weeks in
the car. She gave the men hot
drinks, books and magazines organ
lied impromptu entertainments for
the evenings and did the thousand
things a woman in such n position
could do for lonely boys. But l think
what helped most was just the
thought that an American woman
was willing to stay in that desolate
spot and endure its discomforts. Al
first the American boys could hardly
believe it!
"Now the army wants us to open
another hut on tho Dvina River and
am taking back six more workers,
Miss Marion Curtis, Miss Marion
Clark, Miss Dorothy Lack, Miss Ruth
Heynaman, Miss Emily Hun and Or.
k;stelle Warner. Also ] have bought
stores and brlDit furnishings-y"u
have no idea how the boys in that
desolate country crave color. 1t
even cheered them up II We could
"The men were so appreciatiye!"
Miss Boies exclaimed again and
again. "Our huts We're crowded all
the time. met sailor in London who
said he had been in Archangel, and
asked him If he had visited our hos
tess hut. SURE he grlnncd Only
il was always so fun that ! had to
reach in and pull out about four fell
lows ia order to have room for
myself"
But for mothers whose sons are
somewhere in Northern Russia, Miss
Boies brings them assurance that
they are well and that the cold,
though frightfully uncomfortable.
reallysagrees with them. THE coun-
try is healthier than many other
places where our boys have been
sent" she says, "Of course 1t is
awfully desolatc and mail IS hard to
get, but we are doing all we can to
keep them from feeling they are cut
off from the world. They want to
come home-but so, | suppose, do tho
boys in France"
From the Bolsheviki and their
| doings she was utterly Isolated at
Archangel, but she has TINS TO say
OF the Russian situation in general:
THE Russians will work our a stable
Government, for they are wonderful
people. But 1t will take years and
years, and meanwhile we can do little
TO help them except be friends and
give them the food which thew N