Show wears gas mask over cook stove by ROY S paris some day the story of what american women have done over here in france will be written people will hear then about alie women who ale cooking and baking for the amer lann boys with their helmets and gas masks on the shelf next the baking powder can they will learn of the casual heroines who see nothing remarkable in making hot chocolate an fn shacks where the rain and the snow come in on them through fresh shell holes in the roof one of the women people will hear about will be mrs clara sammons she la as close to the front line here as any woman Is permitted to go for many dais during the active fighting just over the hill from her she was the only woman in the entire area that bother her at all the boys wanted hot choc chocolate olat and she could make it so there you are nd there slie was she Is n little bit of america of american womanhood dropped right down in the middle of the fighting zone she looks morar like home to the boys than anything in the world except a letter she has no picturesque tur esque ideas about carrying culture and uplift to the soldiers ashes there for them she works with a huge mixing bowl full of pulverized chocolate and seven or eight open cans 0 condensed milk on the table on the rickety stove where the old fireplace used to be a great kettle of hot water Is simmering she stirs and pours and pours and stirs till the air of the little shack Is as fragrant as that of a candy store at home A convoy of camione camions rumbles past her door they are almost at the end of their journey german territory halt a dozen kilometers away mrs sammons knows that of course but she hums under her breath at her work een before the hot chocolate Is quite ready the bivs begin to arrive they caroe in tin hats with gas masks at their sides her own helmet and mask are on the shelf behind her hot chocolate ready 7 the first one asks all ready she says as she stirs it with her long spoon she fills one of alic tin cups from alic mantelpiece urn mm says the youngster good and thick give us a package of cookies lie takes his tin cup and his cookley to an empty packing box in the corner sits down and beasts slowly and luxuriously another boy Is at the board that serves as a counter gives the hone touch some of the boys stop to gossip when the edge Is taken off their thirsts and hungers Ite member bill johnson they ask mrs sammons she does tie was the boy who always took three cups of chocolate he wont any more for awhile they tell her stopped one in the leg last night s oh too bad she says just the way she would say it at home if she heard that johnnee had the measles the thing about mrs alm mons and such women she brings to the bivs a constant reminder of the women they have left behind of heir mothers and their sisters and their wives she talks in the most casual american way about things that are neither basuil nor american after the last of her soldiers has put on his tin hat and gone down the hill into the valleys from which they start for their outposts she be gani talking very simply about her work there Is not a mother or wife or sister of any one of these boys who wouldn t give all she has to be where I 1 am she davs just think what a privilege it Is to talk to them and to see that they are well and happy and that their clothes are whole women you know worry most about their uncertainties if 1 could only tell the people who are worrying about these boys how husky and cheerful their youngsters are chata what would make them happa every time I 1 get tired I 1 just think how many thousands of women would be the happiest persons on earth it they could be where I 1 am oh its great 1 |