When he felt the desire for drink or gambling coming on he gave his money to the girls to keep for him.
On the last pay-day before he was sent to another location he took a paint-brush and some paint and made a little sign which he set up in a prominent place in the hut, his silent testimony to what they had done for him: “For the first time on pay-day Scoop is sober!”
One morning a lassie was frying some doughnuts in the Gondrecourt hut, another was rolling and cutting, and both were very busy when a soldier came in with the mail. The girls went on with their work, though one could easily see that they were eager for letters. One was handed to the lassie who was frying the doughnuts. When she opened it she found it was an official dispatch. The others saw the change of her expression and asked what was the matter, but she made no reply while tears started down her cheeks. She, however, went on frying doughnuts. The others asked again what was the trouble and for answer the girl handed them the open dispatch, which stated briefly that one of her three brothers, who were all in the service, had been killed in action on the previous day. The others sympathetically tried to draw her away from her work, but she said: “No, nothing will help me to bear my sorrow like doing something for others.” This is the spirit of the Salvation Army workers. Personal sorrows, personal feelings, personal difficulties, hardships, dangers, are not allowed to interrupt their labors of love. Fortunately, it was later discovered that this message about her brother was unfounded.
A boy told this lassie one day that the next day was his birthday, and she saw the homesickness and yearning in his eyes as he spoke. Immediately she told him she would have a birthday party for him and bake a cake for it.
She found some tiny candles in the village and placed nineteen upon the pretty frosted cake. They had to use a white bed-quilt for a tablecloth, and none of the cups and saucers matched, but the table looked very pretty when it was set, with little white paper baskets of almonds which the girls had made at each place, and all the candles lit on the white cake in the middle. The boy brought three of his comrades, and there were the Salvation Army Major in charge and the lassies. They had a beautiful time. Of course it was quite a little extra work for the lassie, but when someone asked her why she took so much trouble she had a faraway look in her eyes, and said she guessed it was for the sake of the boy’s mother, and those who heard remembered that her own three brothers were in United States uniform somewhere facing the enemy.
There are several instances in which American soldiers coming from British and French Sectors, where they had been brigaded with armies of those nations, have upon entering a Salvation Army hut for the first time without noticing the sign over the door started to talk to the girls in French—very fragmentary French at that. When they found the girls to be Americans they were almost beside themselves with mingled feelings of bashfulness and delight. Most of the soldiers exhibit the former trait.
One boy approached one of our men officers.
“Can them girls speak American?” he asked, pointing at the girls.
On being assured that they could, he said: “Will they mind if I go up and speak to them? I ain’t talked to an American woman in seven months.”
Two soldiers were walking along the dusty roadway.