That is why the "Y" huts--the combination shop, theatre, chapel, and reading-room, coffee-stall and soda fountain, baseball-locker and cigarette store, post-office and library which are run by the Y. M. C. A. from coast to battle-line--are packed by soldiers every hour of the day and evening. The "Y" huts began with the army. Before the second day of the First Division's landing, there was a circus banner across the foot of the main street stating: "This is the way to the Y. M. C. A. Get your money changed, and write home." By following the pointing red finger painted on the banner, one found a wooden shack, with a few chairs, a lot of writing-paper and French money, a secretary and a heap of good-will. As the army moved battleward, these huts appeared just ahead of the soldiers, with increased stores at each new place. American cigarettes were on the counters. A few books arrived. The Y. M. C. A. proved its persuasiveness by its huts. A member of the quartermasters' corps said, one day, in a fit of exasperation over a waiting job: "How do these 'Y' fellows do it--I can't turn without falling over a shack, built for them by the soldiers in their off time. Do I get any work out of these soldiers when they're off? I do not. They're too busy building 'Y' huts." The first entertainment in the "Y" huts was when the company bands moved into them because the weather was too bad to play out-of-doors. The concerts were a great success. By and by, men who knew something interesting were asked to make short lectures to the soldiers. It was an easy step to asking some clever professional entertainer to come down and give a one-man show. Then Elsie Janis, who was in Europe, made a flying tour of the "Y" huts, and a little while after, E. H. Sothern and Winthrop Ames went over to see how much organized entertainment could be sent from America. The result of their visit was The Over-There Theatre League, to which virtually every actor and actress in America volunteered to belong. By the end of the first year, about 300 entertainers were either in France or on their way there or back. Three months was the average time the performers were asked to give, and they circled so steadily that there were always about 200 of them at work on the "Y" circuit. The work of the Y. M. C. A. did not stop with affording entertainment to the soldiers in the camps. They rented a big hotel in Paris and another in London, and they established many canteens in these two cities, so that their patrols--secretaries whose job was to rescue stray, lonely soldiers in the streets--would always have a near and comfortable place to offer to the wanderers. Then they preceded the army to Aix-les-Bains and Chambery, the two resorts in the Savoy Alps where American soldiers were sent for their eight-day leaves, and arranged for cheap hotel accommodations, guides, theatres, etc., and they took over the Casino entirely for the soldiers.