Eleven miles distant from Nancy was Toul; but Toul we have already visited in the pages of this book. We know already the comfortable accommodations that the traveler in khaki found in the group of hotels and canteens which our Red Cross operated there. There were many of these, even outside of Paris; one of the largest the tavern at the badly overcrowded city of Bordeaux. That tavern had been little to boast of, in the beginning. It was an ancient inn indeed; but good taste—the purchase of some few dozen yards of cretonne, and cleanliness—the unrelenting use of mop and broom and soap—had accomplished wonders with it. There were others of these American Red Cross hotels in France during the fighting period—the ones at Dijon, Is-sur-Tille, and Marseilles were particularly popular. But it was in Paris itself that the Red Cross accommodations for the itinerant doughboy in the final months of the war, as in the long and difficult half year that intervened between the signing of the armistice and the signing of peace, reached their highest development. In the beginning these had taken form in canteens which were operated night and day at each of the important railroad stations. These were all right—so far as they went. Their one-franc or seventy-five centime meals were wonderful indeed. I have eaten in these canteens many times myself—and always eaten well. I have been seated between a doughboy from North Carolina and one from North Dakota and been served by a society woman in steel-gray uniform—a woman whose very name was a thing to be emblazoned in the biggest headline type of the New York newspapers, but who was working week in and week out harder than the girls in busy restaurants back home are usually wont to work.
If you would see these canteens as they really worked, gaze upon them through the eyes of a brilliant newspaper woman from San Francisco, who took the time and the trouble to make a thorough study of them. She wrote:
"A brown puddle of coffee was spreading over the white oilcloth. The girl from home sopped it up with her dish towel. She brushed away messy fragments of food and bread crumbs. Again there were few vacant places for American soldiers on the benches at the long table in the canteen at the Gare St. Lazare.
"The canteen, one of a circuit of thirteen maintained by the Red Cross in Paris, had formerly been the corner of a baggage room in one of the most important Paris terminals. The concrete floor bruised her feet. She was as conscious of them as Alice in Wonderland who discovered her own directly beneath her chin after she nibbled the magic toadstool. The girl was tired, but she smiled.
"It was really a smile within a smile. There was one on her lips which seemed to sparkle and glance, waking responsive smiles on the faces of the men. At once the gob who was born down in Virginia and had trained at Norfolk, decided that she was from his own South. The six-foot doughboy from California knew that she came from some small town in the Sierras. To each of the men she suddenly represented home.
"That smile stays in place each day until she reaches her room in a pension across the Seine on the Rue Beaux Arts. There, closing the door upon the world with its constant pageant of uniformed men who seem forever hungry and thirsty, she lets her smile fade away for the first time that day.
"The smile within is tucked away in her heart with the memory of agonizing moments aboard an ocean liner when she felt her exalted desire for service ebbing away because she feared she would not be needed. Needed! Now she wonders who else could have managed so tactfully the boy who had been at sea for one year and discovered that he had forgotten how to talk to an American woman. His diffidence was undermined with another dish of rice pudding and an extra doughnut. He became a regular boarder at the canteen where breakfast costs nine cents and any other man's size meal may be had for thirteen cents. His leave ended in a half day of excited shopping for which his younger sister will always be grateful.
"The girl from home had been one of those solemn creatures who was called to the Overseas Club in New York for service abroad. She was one of hundreds who had clinched their own faith in their ideals by pledging such service. It had been a wrench, saying good-bye at the station in the Middle West. There were no boys in the family, and her father had made a funny little joke which betrayed his pride about 'hanging out a service flag now.' Armed with interminable lists which called for supplies for twelve months, she bought her equipment. All the time she was saying to herself:
"'I am ready to give all of my youth and my strength to the cause and to hasten victory.'
"Then the armistice was signed. The wireless instrument sang with the message. There was a celebration. The ship remained dark, still sliding through the nights warily, but her next trip would be made with decks ablaze and portholes open. The war was ended. It seemed to the girl that in the silence of the aftermath she could hear once more the wings of freedom throbbing above the world. She was glad and she was sorry. Her fear was that after all the Red Cross would not need her because she came too late.