request made and refused,
or granted with, "Please do not ask again." Newcomers are looked upon as
aliens, and there is a queer sort of jealousy about all the work.

[Page Heading: WAR WORKERS' DIFFICULTIES]

Oddly enough, few persons seem to show at their best at a time when the
best should be apparent. No doubt, it is a form of nerves, which is
quite pardonable. Nurses and surgeons do not suffer from it. They are
accustomed to work and to seeing suffering, but amateur workers are a
bit headlong at times. I think the expectation of excitement (which is
often frustrated) has a good deal to do with it. Those who "come out for
thrills" often have a long waiting time, and energies unexpended in one
direction often show themselves unexpectedly and a little unpleasantly
in another.

In my own department I always let Zeal spend itself unchecked, and I
find that people who have claimed work or a job ferociously are the
first to complain of over-work if left to themselves. Afterwards, if
there is any good in them, they settle down into their stride. They are
only like young horses, pulling too hard at first and sweating off their
strength--jibbing one moment and shying the next--when it comes to
"'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh road," one finds who is going
to stick it and who is not.

There has been some heavy firing round about Nieuport and south of the
Yser lately, and an unusual number of wounded have been coming in, many
of them "gravement blesses."

One evening a young French officer came to the kitchen for soup. It was
on Wednesday, December 16th, the day the Allies assumed the offensive,
and all night cases were being brought in. He was quite a boy, and
utterly shaken by what he had been through. He could only repeat, "It
was horrible, horrible!" These are the men who tell brave tales when
they get home, but we see them dirty and worn, when they have left the
trenches only an hour before, and have the horror of battle in their
eyes.

There are scores of "pieds geles" at present, and I now have bags of
socks for these. So many men come in with bare feet, and I hope in time
to get carpet slippers and socks for them all. One night no one came to
help, and I had a great business getting down a long train, so Mrs.
Logette has promised to come every evening. The kitchen is much nicer
now, as we are in a larger passage, and we have three stoves, lamps,
etc. Many things are being "straightened out" besides, my p