An Englishwoman's Home

by Annie S. Swan

I had the same feeling always when I had to stand up in the huts in France before the units of the First Hundred Thousand and it was only by gripping myself tight and holding on to the great ideals they stood for, that I had the courage to say anything to them at all.

The spirit is fine among the women munitioners but sometimes they get tired and discouraged and long for the old sweet peace of home, and the cheerful comradeship of the fireside. It is then that the welfare superintendents, watching with unsleeping vigilance, call to the helpers outside to come and do their bit. I was to speak to them at the lunch hour, half past two in the morning, just to remind them that they are in the trenches too and that they must stand solid and unflinching behind the men who are laying down their lives for us.

I was walking to and fro on the great floor of the factory and had just paused to ask a rather white, sad-faced girl what was worrying her, when suddenly the lights went out. We knew what that meant, all of us, and it really was one of the most awful moments I have ever experienced. As we listened through a silence that could be felt, the machinery having stopped as if by magic, we could hear the sinister grinding of the Zeppelin engine overhead. We all knew that if a bomb crashed through the frail roof very few of the four thousand would see another dawn.

Presently nerves began to break a little; a sob sounded here and there, and once there was a little scream. Then some angel in a far corner, guided from above, no doubt, began to sing low and softly, "Jesus lover of my soul."

I have heard many lovely heart-breaking things, Cornelia, but never anything that thrilled like that. It reminded me a little of your Jubilee singers who came over with Moody, the Evangelist, so long ago from your country. When they sang "Steal away to Jesus," it had the same grip and thrill as it came stealing across the vast arena, taken up by almost every voice. The effect was instantaneous; it fell like Balm of Gilead on our terrified hearts.

We suddenly felt that God was over all, and that unless He permitted, nothing could happen. Nothing did happen. After a time the menace passed, lights went up again and work was quite quickly and cheerfully resumed. We did not speak about it at all afterwards. It is just part of the day's work.

I saw something quite as fine when I went to Gretna for a five-day visit to the workers there. You know Gretna Green? Every good American does. It is one of the shrines at which you worship. The sweet old world village has been swept away, or rather become quite unrecognisable. A great new city like those to which you are so accustomed "out West" has sprung up. When I saw all the signs and symbols of organised industry on a gigantic scale, I looked away across the shifting Solway sands and wondered whether the ghost of Ravenswood, riding to his doom, ever comes back to marvel at the thing that has happened.

Great crowds of women and girls are employed there and the welfare superintendents have their hands full. The problems and grave menace to youth segregated in such numbers far away from home influences are big enough to keep some of us awake at nights. We are fully alive to them and tackle them with all the wisdom and foresight we can muster for the gigantic task.

The spirit is fine—patriotism is a holy fire indeed which can purge the human heart clean of the dross itself.

I spoke a big incontrovertible truth in answer to a woman who was condoling rather profusely on the loss of our dear home. "You can get another house, but there is only one country."