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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Women's Share of War Is Service (Bell Syndicate WNU Service.) Mary has knitted more than one hundred helmets. The small girls knit, too. They are knitting those all-service garments that reputedly are most popu-lar popu-lar in any cold-weather camp. DOING THEIR SHARE Mary Cates might be someone some-one you know. She might be one of your friends or neighbors. neigh-bors. She might, in fact, be you yourself. She is a typical American mother, poorer than some, richer than many. With three children to take care of, neither she nor her husband has much money to spend on entertainment or luxuries. But they manage to buy defense stamps not just once in a while, when they think of it, but every week. Mary knits, and her little girls are also learning to knit. Her stepson wants to join the Marines. Simple, average, everyday Americans, they do their share to help our country win the victory which may, at long last, mean a permanent peace. By KATHLEEN NORRIS THE American woman is going to come of age in the next few years. She is going to put aside the grabbing, grab-bing, boasting, playing, unthinking un-thinking ways of a child, and develop her own consciousness conscious-ness and her own soul. She is going to waste less food; buy fewer things that she doesn't want; stop throwing throw-ing aside perfectly good garments gar-ments for newer garments; stop flocking to poor shows that she doesn't care much about seeing anyway. She is going to learn the value of the things she has always taken for granted; things she has felt that everyone ev-eryone has and she must have as a matter of course. Money is going to look quite different to her in the next few years, and such commonplaces common-places as a good dinner, a safe home, firelight and books and friendly friend-ly faces, suddenly are going to appear ap-pear to be the miracles they are. All One Now. And since immigration has stopped short, and may not begin again for a decade, we're gradually going to unify ourselves into a strong, nationally na-tionally leveled people. Not Irish-American Irish-American any more, not Italian-American, Italian-American, not belonging any more to the varied lands that gave our forefathers birth, but all one now, devoted solely to our own country, and the immortal principles that have made her what she is. tion, and she does not forget prayer. Every morning before seven she walks to church for 20 minutes of an earnest service, and when she walks home to start breakfast her face is always bright But perhaps the finest thing about Mary Cates is her mental, moral and spiritual attitude. Her only brother is out on the great north Atlantic on a destroyer; Mary knows in her heart what the news from Don may be at any moment. But she faces whatever may come with complete fortitude. She will do what she can, in the years ahead, every day and every hour; she will pray and work and plan over each new duty, each change as it arrives, and no one will ever hear her complaining of the world that is at war, or vainly wishing that things could go back to what they were. Things won't go back. They'll never quite go back. But perhaps we'll all be simpler and kinder, less exacting, less rapacious, when this tragedy is over. Perhaps the sacrifices, sacri-fices, hospitalities and generosities of war will be extended to days of peace, and nobody will have ten times too much of the necessities of life, and nobody will have only one-tenth one-tenth enough. Lift Your Hearts. So lift your hearts, and get into the side of this fight that does not involve hate or revenge or ugliness of any kind, but just loving and serving. The situation is not of our choosing; the decisions have been made for us, and in that very fact there lies a certain sorrowful satisfaction, satis-faction, a certain conviction that no matter how difficult our path may be, at least it has been made plain. Many years ago I found some lines of an old hymn. I've thought of them often in the last few weeks. Here they are, perhaps imperfectly quoted, but the spirit is there: When you come to the Red Sea place in your life, When there's nothing else you can do, There is no way back, there is no way 'round. There is no other way but through. Then trust in the Lord with a faith supreme, 'Till the dark and the night are gone, He will still the waves; He will calm the storm When He says to your soul, "Go on." There is no other way for us now but THROUGH. And we will get through. We will not buy it cheaply, the world-peace that must come out of all this. There will be no nation in the world that will not be bled white before it arrives. But when it does arrive, if it finds us understanding ourselves and our neighbor and our social obligations better, it will not have been in vain. This is the story of Mary Cates. I know there are many women like her, but she happens to be the example ex-ample that has come to my personal knowledge and I want the women who "would love to do something but don't know how to get at it," to hear about her. Mary is 34, the wife of a man whose income is $2,400 a year. She has daughters 8 and 10 years old, and a stepson who has just volunteered volun-teered for service in the marines. To begin with Mary saves two dollars dol-lars a week, and takes two more out of the paycheck each month, to buy government stamps. She puts these in her daughters' names. She made a house-to-house canvass of her entire neighborhood a rather humble one to pick up games and packs of cards for the boys' club in the nearest camp. She had printed at her own expense a list of things, often thrown away in the household, that would be acceptable gifts for soldiers. At Christmas time she had six soldiers to dinner, and a small present for each was on her tree. Mary knits helmets steadily; she has knitted more than a hundred altogether. The yarn is given her, but she does the knitting. Children Help. The small girls knit, too; they are knitting those all-service garments that reputedly are most popular of all in any cold-weather camp. These are first simply oblongs of knitting about 24 by 22 inches. They are sewed into tubes, to be pulled up into the armpits to protect the entire en-tire body from cold, or to be drawn over the head to keep throat, chest and shoulders warm. An old and faithful Red Cross worker, Mary keeps up this obliga- |