First soldier: “Aw, come on. They got real homemade pie!”
Second soldier: “I don’t care!”
First soldier: “They cut their own wood and do their own work!”
Second soldier: “Well, that’s different! Why didn’t you say that right off, you bonehead? Come on. Where is it?”
And they entered the Salvation Army hut smiling.
One dear Salvation Army lady had a little hand sewing machine which she took about with her and wherever she landed she would sit down on an orange crate, put her machine on another and set up a tailor shop: sewing up rips; refitting coats that were too large; letting out a seam that was too tight; and helping the boys to be tidy and comfortable again. A good many of our boys lost their coats in the Soissons fight, and when they got new ones they didn’t always fit, so this little sewing machine that went to war came in very handy. Sometimes the owner would rip off the collar or rip out the sleeves, or almost rip up the whole coat and with her mouthful of pins skillfully put it together again until it looked as if it belonged to the laddie who owned it. Then with some clever chalk marks replacing the pins she would run it through her little machine, and off went another boy well-clothed. One week she altered more than thirty-three coats in this way. The soldiers called her “mother” and loved to sit about and talk with her while she worked.
The men went in battalions to the Lunéville Sector for Trench Training facing the enemy. Of course, the Salvation Army sent a detachment also.
Over here they had to give up huts. No huts at all were allowed so near the front. No light of fire or even stove, no lights of any kind or everything would be destroyed by shell fire at once. An order went out that all huts near the front must be under ground. Yet neither did this daunt the faithful men and women whom God Himself had sent to help those boys at the front.
The work was extended to other camps in the Gondrecourt area and finally the time came for the troops to move up to the front to occupy part of a sector.