MIRABELLE

One striking feature of the war is the number of women and girls engaged in various kinds of work back of the lines. The British Army has thousands of them doing clerical work or driving ambulances, while in the A.E.F. their activities so far have been limited to canteen work with the Red Cross or Y. M. C. A.

Most of them are practical individuals doing a lot of good, but occasionally one slips over imbued with the idea that soldiers are sort of overgrown bacteriological specimens to be studied and handled only with sterilized gloves.

Possibly one of the latter inspired a certain A.E.F. private to lapse into poetry after he had stowed her baggage away and heard her dissertation on what the camp needed. His verses were:

The ether ethered, The cosmos coughed, Mirabelle whispered— The words were soft:

"I shall go," Mirabelle said— And her voice, how it bled!— "I shall go to be hurt By the dead, dead, dead. To be hurt, hurt, hurt"— Oh, the sad, sweet mien, And the dreepy droop Of that all-nut bean!

"One must grow," Mirabelle wailed, "And one grows by the knife. I shall grow in my soul In that awful strife. Let me go, let me grow," Was the theme of her dirge; "Let the sobbiest of sobs Through my bosom surge."

The sergeant took a lean On the canteen door The captain ran away: "What a bore! What a bore!"

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