"It was the hour of tea when the young man came in. In fresh white coif and apron of blue, a Red Cross girl presided behind the altar of the sacred institution, where the pot simmered and lemon and sugar graced the brew. In a charmed circle around the attractively furnished room which, among its other attractions, boasted a piano, a pretty reading lamp, and a writing desk, sat some fifteen other officers—most of them dusty and tired from long traveling, some shy, some talkative, two gray-bearded, most of them mere boys, all warming themselves in the civilizing atmosphere of the subtle ceremony. On the table piled on a generous dinner plate was the marvel on which the young lieutenant's eyes rested—doughnuts.
"Forty-eight thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five doughnuts. Not to be sure, all on that dinner plate—the great number is that of the doughnuts officially stirred up, dropped in deep fat, and distributed from the Red Cross houses and station canteens during the month of July, 1918. Other good things were served in a similar abundance that same month; 19,760 hot and cold drinks, 13,546 sandwiches, and 19,574 tartines, not to mention 2,460 salads and 4,160 dishes of ice cream—these last, of course, special hot-weather foods. But the doughnuts were the pride and glory of the Toul establishment—the masterpiece by which its praises were known and sung in the long trenches that scarred the fair Lorraine hills. They were the real American article—except also for the traditional rolling in the sugar barrel, now vanished like the dodo—soft and golden and winningly round. They were made by a Frenchwoman, but her instructor was a genuine Yankee soldier cook, who learned the art from his mother in the Connecticut Valley, where they cherish the secret of why the doughnut has a hole. He was particularly detailed to initiate the Frenchwoman into the mysteries of the art by an army colonel who understood doughnuts and men and who sat at tea with the directress one day when the Red Cross outpost at Toul still was young."
The directress was, of course, Miss Andress, and it was in those early days she still was the staff and the staff was the directress; and never dreaming of the summer nights when her commodious resthouse in the Route de Paris, with its accommodations for eight men and twenty-five officers, would be called upon in a single short month to take care of 560 officers and 2,124 enlisted men—and would take care of every blessed one of them to the fullest extent.
Enough again of figures. At the best they tell only part of the story. The boys who enjoyed the multifold hospitalities of the Red Cross in Toul—that quaint, walled, and moated fortress town of old France, with its churches and its exquisite cathedral rising above its low roofs—could tell the rest of it; and gladly did when the opportunity was given them. For instance here is a human document which came into my hands one day when I was at the Toul canteen:
"Dear Red Cross Girls at the Canteen:
"I always wanted to tell you how I appreciated all the nice things you have done for us since I have been over here and would have, but perhaps you'd think I was making love to you for I felt I wanted to get you in a great big bunch and give you a great big hug. No, I wouldn't need any moonlight and shivery music, for it isn't that kind of a hug—the kind of hug I wanted to give is the kind a brother gives his sister; or a boy gives his mother when he wants her to know that he loves her and appreciates her.... You girls are for the boys of the fighting power and you don't ask any questions and you don't bestow any special favors and so we all love you.
"(A soldier) Mr. Buck Private."
Sometimes actions speak louder than words. There came a time—in September, 1918—when the troops were moving pretty steadily through Toul and up toward the Argonne. The Red Cross girls were hard put to it to see that all the boys had all the food and drink and lodgings and baths that they wanted; but they saw that these were given and in generous measure, even though it meant ten and twelve and fourteen and even sixteen hours of work at a stretch. They had their full reward for their strenuous endeavors, not always in letters, or even in words. Sometimes the language of expression of the human face is the most convincing thing in all the world.
It was a boy from Grand Island, Nebraska, who slouched into the Toul canteen in the station yard on one of the hottest of those September nights. He was tired and dirty, and his seventy-five pounds of equipment upon his back must almost have been more than mortal might bear. But he did not complain—it was not the way of the doughboy. He merely shoved his pack off upon the floor and inquired in a quiet, tired voice: