forward Norma was all but overcome by the feeling that she was part of something mammoth and wonderful.

“It’s big!” she exclaimed.

“Biggest thing in all the world.” Betty pressed her arm. “We’re in the Army now!”

Yes, they were in the Army. And this was Army food. On their sectional trays, oatmeal, toast and bacon were piled.

Their cups were a marvel to behold. Half an inch thick, big as a pint jar, and entirely void of handles, they presented a real problem. But Norma mastered the art of an Army coffee drinker in one stride. So too did Millie, the girl from a department store.

“Boy!” Millie giggled, balancing her cup in one hand. “Now let the Japs come! I’ll get one of them and never even nick this cup! Honest,” she confided, “I think this is going to be fun.”

“Fun, and lots of work,” was Norma’s reply.

“Oh! Work!” Millie sobered. “Lead me to it! It can’t be worse than Shield’s Bargain Basement during the Christmas rush. It’s ‘Can you find me this?’ or ‘Can you give me that?’ and ‘Miss Martin, do this,’ and ‘Miss Martin, do that,’ hours and hours on end. Bad air, cross customers, bossy floorwalkers. And for what? I ask you? Sixteen dollars a week!”

“Could you live on that?” Norma asked in surprise.

“No, but I did,” Millie giggled. “But honest, I think this will be a lot better.”

“It’s not so much a matter of it being better or worse,” Norma replied soberly, “as it is of what we have to give. This is war, you know. Our war!”

“Yes, I know.” The little salesgirl, it seems, had a serious side to her nature. “I’ve thought about that, too. In the city where they examined us they said I might do library work. I sold books, you know, and I know an awful lot about them. And I can cook, too,” she added hopefully.

“They have a cooking and baking school,” Betty encouraged. “They teach you how to cook in a mess hall and out of doors for a few people and a great many. Perhaps for a thousand people at a time. And you do it all in the baggage car of a special train.”

“Ee-magine little me cooking for a thousand people!” Millie wilted like an unwatered flower. “Honest, girls, I’m just scared stiff! I couldn’t go back! I just couldn’t! I’d rather die! And 

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