freely of hot coffee and cocoa, bread, cakes and lemonade, to those
weary men as they come in, but also have made their little sheds look
gaily hospitable with flags and pictures. The Miss Gracies had even
induced some one to build an open air theater in the great barrack
yard where the men could amuse themselves and one another if they felt
inclined. A more practical gift by Mrs. Allen was a bath house in
which were six showers and soap and towels.

It was a dirty yard we stood in this time, handing out gifts, and when
I saw Mrs. Allen buying a whole wheelbarrow-load of golden-looking
doughnuts, brought by a woman of the village close by, I wondered with
some apprehension if she were meaning to reward us for our excessive
virtue. But they were an impromptu treat for the soldiers standing in
the yard--some already lined up to march--and the way they disappeared
down those brown throats made me feel blasée and over-civilized.

I did not hand out during this little fête, my place being taken by
Mrs. Thayer of Boston, so I was better able to appreciate the picture.
All the women were pretty, and I wondered if Madame Balli had chosen
them as much for their esthetic appeal to the exacting French mind as
for their willingness to help. It was a strange sight, that line of
charming women with kind bright eyes, and, although simply dressed,
stamped with the world they moved in, while standing and lying about
were the tired and dirty poilus--even those that stood were slouching
as if resting their backs while they could--with their uniforms of
horizon blue faded to an ugly gray, streaked and patched. They had not
seen a decent woman for months, possibly not a woman at all, and it
was no wonder they followed every movement of these smiling
benefactresses with wondering, adoring, or cynical eyes.