There were the women in the little out-of-the-way canteens who struggled with coal which "acted like coagulated granite," to quote the words of one of them, and refused to ignite, save by patience and real toil. There were long hours on station platforms feeding men by passing food through car windows because there was not even time for the men to alight and enter the canteens. Moreover, the soldiers had a habit at times of leaving their savings for a canteen girl to send to the folks at home, and although this was not a recognized official part of their jobs, and, in fact, involved a tremendous amount of work, the trust was not refused. The women workers fussed with these and many other errands while the coffee brewed and the chocolate boiled.
In such canteens as those which at first catered to all of the Allies, the menus were arranged in favor of the heaviest patronage. For the visiting _poilus_ there was specialization in French dishes. When the Italians were expected, macaroni was quite sure to become the _pièce de résistance_. But for the Yankee boy there has apparently never been anything to excel or even to equal good white bread, good ham, and good coffee. French coffee may be good for the French--far be it from me to decide upon its merits--but to the American doughboy give a cup of Yankee coffee, cooked, if you please, in Yankee style. On such a beverage he can live and work and fight. And perhaps some of the marvelous quality of our American fighting has been due in no small measure to the good quality of our American coffee.
Birds will sometimes revisit a country torn and swept bare by war--even as Picardy and Flanders have been torn--and so do the flowers creep back gently to cling to the earth's torn wounds--the shell holes, the trenches, the gaping walls, seeking to cover the hurts with their soft camouflage of green and glowing color. The tenderest sight I saw in bruised Péronne--Péronne which seemed so terribly hurt, even when one came to compare it with Cambrai, or St. Quentin, or Noyon--was a little new vine climbing up over the ruins of the parish church; and I thought of the centuries that the vines had been growing over the gothic traceries of Melrose Abbey. Flowers gathered by the American Army served to decorate the waysides of France. The folk of that land have no monopoly of sentiment. Indeed I have often wondered if ours might not also have been called the sentimental army as well as the amazing army.