Page:This side the trenches, with the American Red cross (IA thissidetrenches00desc).pdf/29

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she'd be glad to come and live with you for a few months."

The young woman and Mrs. Smith became friends at once and, as the older woman had been a trained nurse, the coming of the baby that has since arrived was converted into a source of eagerly anticipated joy.

At such times and, indeed, whenever there is sickness, the Home Service worker arranges for the presence of a doctor and a nurse, or secures admission to a hospital for the woman, if that is desirable. She sees also that the young mother becomes acquainted with those who can give her instruction about the care of the baby and herself.

No one, of course, can fill the place which the husband or the son has left—neither the Red Cross nor the other members of the family—but Home Service offers to women the kind of counsel and advice which their men would like to obtain for them, and, by helping them out of perplexity, by saving them from loneliness and friendlessness, gives to the men in the trenches or on shipboard that feeling of security about the folks at home which enables them to fight with unimpaired morale.

Review of Chapter III

1. What is the first and hardest thing that the family of the man in the service has to bear?

2. What binds the members of a family together?

3. What must the family do in order to lessen as much as possible the handicap caused by the absence of the man?

4. Give an illustration showing how Home Service helped a soldier's mother to overcome her loneliness.