There were many, many occasions, too, when the relatives at home depended upon that selfsame diplomacy of hers to tell the disagreeable stories of losses or perhaps to prepare the boys overseas to face an empty chair in the family circle. There was one particularly fearful moment when a brilliant young officer had to be told that the reason why his young wife had ceased to write was because she had gone insane and specialists believed that she could not recover. Boys were driven to Red Cross offices by hidden affairs that flayed them hideously and of which they wished to purge themselves. Some wanted to set old wrongs right. Others had fallen blindly into the hands of the unscrupulous and had only fully awakened to see their folly after they actually were upon the battlefields of France. Then there were the softer phases of life—the shy letters and the blushing visitors who wished to have a marriage arranged with Thérèse or Jeanne of the black eyes and the delicate oval face. I remember one of our boys who had fallen in love with a girl in Nancy. Theirs was a courtship of unspoken love, unless soft glances and gentle caresses do indeed speak more loudly than mere words; for they had no easy bond of a common tongue. His French was doughboy French, which was hardly French at all, and her English was limited. So that after he had gone on to the Rhine and the letter came from her to him in the delicate hand that the sisters at the convent had taught, he needs must seek out Red Cross Home Communication and intrust to it the task of uncommon delicacy, which it fulfilled to the complete delight and satisfaction of both of them. For how could any mother, let alone the Greatest Mother in the World, blind her eyes entirely to love?
She apparently had no intention of doing any such thing. For how about that good-looking doughboy from down in the Ozark country somewhere, who arrived in Paris on a day in the autumn of 1918 with the express intention of matrimony, if only he knew where he could get the license? French laws are rather fussy and explicit in such matters. Some one suggested the Home Service Bureau of the American Red Cross to the boy. He found his way quickly to it—with little Marie, or whatever her name really was, hanging on his arm. A Red Cross man prayerfully guided the pair through the legal mazes of the situation. First they went to a law office in the Avenue de l'Opéra where the necessary papers were made out; then the procession solemnly moved to the office of the United States Vice Consul at No. 1 Rue des Italiens, where the signature of the American official representative was duly affixed to each of the papers; after which to the foreign office, where the French went through all the elaborate processes of sealings and signatures which they seem to love so dearly, and then—the work of Mother Red Cross was finished. They were quite ready for the offices of the Church.
With the signing of the armistice all this work was greatly increased—was, in fact, doubled and nearly trebled. When a man was fighting his physical needs seemingly were paramount; but once off the field, the worries that lurked in his subconscious mind seemed to rise quickly to the surface. He then recalled that long interval since last he heard from home. That troubled him, and he turned to the Red Cross—those pamphlets and posters did have a tremendous effect. And if he had no definite troubles over here, such as those we have just seen, he was apt to be just plain hungry for a sight of the home—and the loved ones that it held.
It was in answer to a demand such as this last that a Red Cross representative right here in the United States took her motor car and drove for a half day out to see a family of whose very existence she had never before even heard; and, as a result of her call, wrote back a letter from which the following excerpts are taken:
"I want to tell you about a never-to-be-forgotten trip that I took the other day out to see a one hundred per cent patriot; an American mother who has three sons in the service. The home is one of the coziest, homiest, friendliest places you can imagine; one story, with that cool spacious plan of construction that makes you want to get a book, capture a chair on the wide, comfortable porch, and forget the world and its dizzy rush; a great sweep of lawn and with some handsome Hereford calves browsing in one direction and a cluster of shade trees nearer the house.
"The hills surrounding the house make a lovely view and all were covered with grazing stock, also the fine Hereford cattle for which the place is known. But the best part of the home is the dear little woman who hung a service flag in the window with the name of a boy under each of the three stars. She is the type of mother that draws every one to her; tender, sensible, capable, broad-minded, and with a shrewd sense of humor that keeps things going and makes life worth living for the entire household.
"She took us to a roomy side porch where her sewing unit of the Red Cross meets each Tuesday. A marvelous amount of work has been turned out in that side porch, and I'll wager a dollar to a doughnut that I know the moving spirit of the workers. Off in a big, cool parlor bedroom there were stacked up several perfectly enchanting 'crazy quilts' made by these same busy women at odd moments. These are ready to be sent to Serbia or they may be sold at auction for the benefit of the Red Cross.
"We saw pictures of each boy in the service—one in the navy, one in the heavy artillery, and Milton, whom we all hope is not in the hospital by now. Each boy had in his eyes the same intrepid look that the mother has—one can tell that they made good soldiers. Knowing how busy farm folk are, we reluctantly took our leave after seeing all these interesting things and, as we swung out into the country lane, we looked back and there stood the mother waving and smiling—the very best soldier of them all."
Can you not see how very simple it all was—how very human, too? As you saw in one of the earlier chapters of this book, a fairly formal and elaborate plan of organization had been laid out for all this work; but, perhaps because war after all, is hardly more than a series of vast emergencies, the American Red Cross searchers, either in the field or in the hospitals, could hardly confine themselves to any mere routine of clerical organization or work in the great task that was thrust upon them. The unexpected was forever upon them.