| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | WHERE THE LONG TRAIL LED | [ 1] |
| II. | I ADOPT THE AMERICAN ARMY | [ 8] |
| III. | SEEING AMERICA OVER THERE | [ 16] |
| IV. | PIONEERS, OH, PIONEERS | [ 25] |
| V. | WE FINISH WHAT CÆSAR BEGAN | [ 33] |
| VI. | GOING TO SCHOOL IN THE ARMY | [ 41] |
| VII. | OUR BOYS DISCOVER THE PAST | [ 49] |
| VIII. | THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY | [ 57] |
| IX. | OUR FOREIGN LEGION | [ 66] |
| X. | THE GENERAL HIMSELF | [ 74] |
| XI. | GENERAL ALLAIRE’S FINEST | [ 82] |
| XII. | INTO THE TRENCHES | [ 89] |
| XIII. | WRITE TO HIM OFTEN--BUT | [ 100] |
| XIV. | WHEN THEY WIN WOUND STRIPES | [ 108] |
| XV. | FIGHTING WOUND SHOCK | [ 116] |
| XVI. | HOW THE WAR AGAINST TRENCH FEVER WAS WON | [ 125] |
| XVII. | THE GREATEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD | [ 132] |
| XVIII. | FRANCE APPROVES THE EGREC EM SAY AH | [ 140] |
| XIX. | BEAUTY AS USUAL | [ 148] |
| XX. | BLED WHITE | [ 156] |
| XXI. | THE REPATRIATES | [ 164] |
| XXII. | FRENCHMEN, NEVER FORGET | [ 172] |
| XXIII. | THE NEW WOMAN IN FRANCE | [ 180] |
| XXIV. | POUR LA PATRIE | [ 188] |
| XXV. | BY WAY OF DIVERSION | [ 196] |
| XXVI. | WHEN THE BOYS COME HOME | [ 203] |
| XXVII. | WHAT KIND OF WAR WORK | [ 211] |
| XXVIII. | THE DARK OCEAN LANES | [ 219] |
| XXIX. | CLEMENCEAU THE TIGER | [ 227] |
| XXX. | FROM ALL FOES, FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC | [ 237] |
| XXXI. | LAFAYETTE, WE’RE HERE | [ 246] |
A Soldier’s Mother in France
CHAPTER I
WHERE THE LONG TRAIL LED
On the lapel of my coat I wear a little pin, a pin with a single star, ruby red on a bar of white. My only son is a member of the American Expeditionary Force in France. More than a million American women wear pins like mine. Some have two stars, three, even four, and every one covers a heart heavy with anxiety and foreboding. That little service pin which mothers wear, fathers, too; sisters, sweethearts, wives, is a symbol of sacrifice. It should be something more than that.
My star has come to mean love of country far surpassing the mild patriotism of other days. It means confidence and courage for whatever in these tragic times I shall need courage. It means pride in the young manhood of America and hope unbounded for the future of America, which lies in their hands. Before I went to France I wore my service pin for one soldier—my son. I wear it now for the American army. If I can, by writing of that army as I have just seen it in France, lessen a little for other women the burden of anxiety and dread I shall count my journey worth while.
I went to France as a correspondent, a reporter, to write about the war. I was sent, not because I am a woman, but in spite of the fact, and merely because my editors believed that I could handle that particular job. My letter of credentials to the French Foreign Office said that I had reported the Russian revolution for my paper and that I was now assigned to France with the view of informing readers in the United States as to participation of United States troops in war and the political situations of the allied countries in the war.
I hope that my editors’ confidence in me was not entirely misplaced and that I did not quite fall down on my job. But what I experienced in France and what I brought out with me were not exactly what I had expected. I went to France as a correspondent, deeply interested in my work, but very soon after I arrived and almost with my first contact with our marvelous new army I forgot all about my work. I forgot that I was in France after military and political facts.
I forgot that I was a correspondent. I was conscious only that I was a mother. The mother of a boy in France. I was one in heart with a million other American women I have never seen and will never see; one with every woman in the land who wears a service pin.
I discovered that try as I might to think of armies, strategies and diplomacies, the only thing that vitally concerned me in France was to find out how my son was faring, and in doing so I was finding out the things that other mothers wanted to know about their boys.
Where they are, how they live, who their comrades are, how they work and play, what they are learning, how they get along with their strange new neighbors, the French people, and what the war is doing to their minds and souls, as well as their bodies. I wanted, fervently, to know all this about one soldier, and I believed that the other women would like to know about their own.