WITH THE A. E. F. IN FRANCE
“Two weeks later the Irish nurse who had him as her particular charge, almost shouted: ‘Why, John, there's that lady who talked to you the day you were so bad, and haven't I often been thinking of it since. That was the day you got well, John.’ Later, the boy was presented by the Committee with a Bible. He held the book a moment to his face, tenderly caressing it, and quickly slipped it under his pillow. ‘There is nothing,’ said one nurse, ‘which the boys so thoroughly love as a Bible.’ ”
During the influenza epidemic and the last bitter weeks of the war, when the American troops were winning their laurels in the Argonne and at St. Mihiel, all our Paris Workers were busy day and night responding to calls for help. Their work also necessitated a great deal of correspondence—letters to the boys themselves, and to their friends. The joy of these faithful Workers can well be imagined when possibly some time after treatment had been begun a stalwart American lad would walk into the War Relief Rooms announcing that he was Sergeant C. or Lieutenant L. or Private X. and say, “You've been helping me, you know, and I'm feeling fine.” Sometimes the boys never got to the Rooms but would send grateful letters acknowledging the help received.
After the signing of the armistice the nature of the cases changed somewhat. The enforced idleness into which the men were plunged after the continuous activity of previous months seemed a fertile soil for the seeds of temptation and vice, and many earnest boys who appealed to our Workers were helped to rise above the conditions which threatened to engulf them and were shown how to be contented and happy until the longed-for embarkation order arrived.
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