A boy who had been converted in one of the meetings a few nights before came into the hut and sought her out. He told her he was going over the top that night, and he had something he wanted to confess before he went. He had told a lie and he had felt terrible remorse about it ever since he was converted. He had treated his mother badly, and gone and enlisted, saying he was eighteen when he was only sixteen. “Now,” said he with relief after he had told the story, “that’s all clear. And say, if I’m killed, will you go through my pockets and find my Testament and send it to mother? And will you tell my mother all about it and tell her it is all right with me now? Tell mother I went over the top a Christian. You’ll know what to say to her to help her bear up.”
She promised and the boy went away content. That night he was killed, and, true to her promise, she went through his pockets when he was brought back, and found the little Testament close over his heart; and in it a verse was marked for his mother:
“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
During the early days of the Salvation Army work in France, while the work was still under inspection as to its influence on the men, and one Colonel had sent a Captain around to the meetings to report upon them to him, “Ma’s” was one of the meetings to which the Captain came.
She did not know that she was under suspicion, but that night she spoke on obedience and discipline, taking as her text: “Take heed to the law,” and urging the men to obey both moral and military laws so that they might be better men and better soldiers. The Captain reported on her sermon and said that he wished the regiment had a Salvation Army chaplain for every company.
The hospital visitation work was started by “Ma” in the Paris hospitals while she was in that city for several months regaining her strength after a physical break-down at the front. She was idolized by the wounded. If she walked along any hospital passageway or through any ward, a crowd of men were sure to call her by name. They knew her as “Ma,” and frequently, overworked nurses have called up the Paris Salvation Army Headquarters asking if Ma could not find time to come down and sit with a dying boy who was calling for her. She observed their birthdays with books and other small presents, wrote to their mothers, wives and sweethearts, and performed a multitude of invaluable, precious little services of love. For weeks after she left Paris, returning to the front, the wounded called for her. She is one of the outstanding figures of the Salvation Army’s work with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. She is indelibly enshrined in the hearts of hundreds of American soldiers.
A Salvation Army lassie bent over the bed of a wounded boy recently arrived in the Paris hospital from the front, and gave him an orange and a little sack of candy.
“I know the Salvation Army,” he said with a faint smile, “I knew I should find you here.”
She asked him his division and he told her he belonged to one that had been coöperating with the French.
“But how can that be?” she asked in surprise, “we have never worked with your division. How do you know about us?”