I remember particularly the situation in the great central station of the Midi Railroad in Bordeaux. This huge structure is a real focal point of passenger traffic. From beneath its expansive train shed trains come and go; to and from Paris and Boulogne and Biarritz and Marseilles and many other points--over the busy lines, not only of the Midi, but of the Paris-Orléans and the Etat. A great proportion of this traffic is military, and long ago the French Red Cross sought to accommodate this with a huge _Goutte de Café_ in a barnlike sort of room in the main station structure and opening direct upon its platforms. I glanced at this place. It was gloomy and ill-lighted by the uncertain, even though dazzling, glow of one or two electric arc lights. It was fearfully overcrowded. _Poilus_ occupied each of the many seats in the room and flowed over to the floor, where they sat or reclined as best they might on the benches or on their luggage. The place was ill-ventilated, too. It was not one that offered large appeal.
How different the appearance of the canteen of our own Red Cross. It had a far less advantageous location; well outside the station train shed and only to be found by one who was definitely directed to it. Two buildings had been erected and another adapted for the canteen. They were plain enough outside, but inside they were typically American--which meant that light and color and warmth had been combined effectively to produce the effect of a home that might have been in Maine, or Ohio, or Colorado, or California, or any other nice corner of the old U. S. A. There was homelike atmosphere, too, in the long, low buildings enhanced by the unforgetable aroma of coffee being made--being made American style, if you please. That building boasted a long counter, and upon the counter miniature mountains of ham sandwiches and big brown doughnuts--sandwiches and doughnuts which actually had been fabricated from white flour--and ham sandwiches with a genuine flavor to them. And all in great quantity--2,000 meals in a single day was no unusual order--and for a price that was nominal, to put it lightly.
In another building there were more of the lights and the warm yellows and greens of good taste in decoration; a big piano with a doughboy at it some twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four--whole companies of divans and regiments of easy-chairs: American newspapers, many weekly publications, a lot of magazines, and books in profusion. The room was completely filled, but somehow one did not gain the sensation of its being crowded. The feeling that one carried from the place was that a bit of the U. S. A. had been set right down there at the corner of the great and busy chief railway terminal of the French city of Bordeaux. Only one forgot Bordeaux.