teal that fruit, evidently to sell it, at the expense of the
wounded American soldiers on this hospital ship, who had fought and
saved their country from the Hunnish hordes. We had been cheated and
overcharged for everything we purchased in France, and we knew it, but
it surely did hurt when we were thus treated by men whose homes we had
saved at the cost of our blood. I will say this: We did not hold this
kind of treatment against the French people as a whole, but to
individuals who are so unprincipled and so greedy that they are
willing to sacrifice the fair name of their people for a paltry gain.
I might add here that it was the smallness of some of the individual
"Y" workers that brought the Y. M. C. A. into such disrepute among
the American soldiers in France. This simply shows how important it is
for an individual to sustain the reputation of his country, or his
association, as the case may be, by honorable conduct.

After our officers uncached the horde of stolen apples in the ship's
hold, we were well fed and on the last two days of the journey had no
complaint to make on this score.

On December 24th at 10 a.m. some far sighted individual shouted "Land"
and what a welcome word it was. Columbus, watching from the deck of
the Santa Maria, was not more happy when he first set eyes upon the
faint outline of the new world than we were as the dim blue shoreline
began to rise upon the horizon. There was a mad rush to the deck and
everybody who could get out was soon watching over the rail. It was
not long before the Statue of Liberty came into full view and there
was joy in our hearts for we knew that at last we were home.

In a very few minutes our ship stopped and a pilot was taken aboard to
guide the great vessel safely into the harbor. Next we were greeted by
a yacht that steamed out beside us carrying a great sign, "Welcome
Home." It was the 24th of December, and this boat carried a large
Christmas tree, typical of the season.

As we entered the harbor, we were given a wonderful welcome. It seemed
as though every whistle in the great city of New York had been brought
into action to make noise on our account. Certainly every boat in the
harbor from the smallest tug to the trans-Atlantic liners was blowing
a blast; and the noise, though of an entirely different character, was
as deafening as that of a battle. Every window of all the great
buildings that make up that wonderful skyline of New York was filled
with