“Evans had gone into an old church to have a look at it, and as he stood there with bared head satisfying his respectful curiosity, a gray man with the eagles of a general on the collar of his shabby uniform entered the church.  Only one orderly accompanied the quiet, gray man.  No glittering staff of officers, no entourage of gold-laced aides were with him; nobody but just the orderly.

“Evans paid small attention at first to the gray man, but was curious to see him kneel in the church, praying.  The minutes passed until full three-quarters of an hour had gone by before the gray man arose from his knees.

“Then Evans followed him down the street and was surprised to see soldiers salute this man in great excitement, and women and children stopping in their tracks with awe-struck faces as he passed.

“It was Foch!  And now Evans, of San Bernardino, counts the experience as the greatest in his life.  During that three-quarters of an hour that the generalissimo of all the Allied armies was on his knees in humble supplication in that quiet church, 10,000 guns were roaring at his word on a hundred hills that rocked with death.

“Moreover, it is not a new thing with him.  He has done it his whole life long.”

CHAPTER XXXII

HOME FOLLOWS THE FLAG

Nearly 28,000,000 Red Cross Relief Workers Distributing Aid in Ten Countries—­Two War Fund Drives in 1918 Raise $291,000,000—­Other Organizations Active—­3,000 Buildings Necessary—­Caring for the Boys—­Boy Scouts Play Their Part Well.

From the hour of enlistment to the hour of return, the United States soldiers and sailors have had with them, throughout the war, the advantage of intelligent, sympathetic help from various civilian organizations, co-ordinating with the military.

First of all is the Red Cross, but that organization really is a non-combatant arm of the national service; and its work, generously financed by public subscription, is the greatest of its kind ever done in field or hospital, in any war.

Red Cross history would fill a big volume, no matter how meagrely told.  There are 3,854 chapters of the organization.  At the annual meeting of their war council, October 23, 1918, the chairman, Henry P. Davison, submitted a report that is literally astonishing, because the facts related had developed without, publicity and were quite unknown to the people of the country at large.  Here are a few of them, taken from Mr. Davison’s official statement: 

NEARLY 28,000,000 WORKERS

The Red Cross in America has a membership of 20,648,103, and in addition, 8,000,000 members in the Junior Red Cross—­a total enrollment of more than one-fourth the population of the United States.

American Red Cross workers produced up to July 1st, 1918, a total of 221,282,838 articles of an estimated value of $44,000,000.  About 8,000,000 women are engaged in canteen work and the production of relief supplies.