“I’m afraid I’ll shock Mother when I get home.” “They won’t know what to make of us, back home, the way we’ll behave.” “I reckon I’ve forgotten how to act civilized.” And over and again they confess to a shame-faced apprehension lest they should unguardedly relapse into the language of the army and so frighten their women folk! A famous French surgeon confided to my friend, the English Lady: “In that first year of the war when we were allowed no _permissions_ we became like savages. The first time that I returned home I was afraid. I was afraid all the while, afraid before my wife, before my children,—afraid that I would act the beast.” If by coming to France, we women who have had this privilege have discovered the American doughboy, the American doughboy, by coming to France, has discovered America. I don’t know who first said; “After I get back, if the Statue of Liberty ever wants to see my face again, she’ll have to turn around,” but whoever did, uttered a sentiment which has been echoed and re-echoed all over France. The doughboy has been to Paris, “the City of Light,” he has amused himself in the playgrounds of princes along the Riviera, he has visited the châteaux and palaces of kings and queens. And though he admits it is all mighty fine, in the face of everything he holds staunchly to his declaration of loyalty; “I’ll tell the world the little old U. S. A. is good enough for me!” At times perhaps his patriotic enthusiasm has outweighed his manners. Again and again a French villager, evidently echoing some doughboy’s dissertation, has asked me a little wistfully; “America _bon_, goode! France _pas bon_, no goode! _Hein?_” “Anyway the war has done one good thing,” I used to say to the lads in the canteens, “it has taught you to appreciate your homes.” “I used to want to get away from home,” confided one boy to me, “but when I get back there again I’m just going to tie myself so tight to Mother’s apron-strings that she’ll never get the knot undone.” “Say, when I get back,” declared another lad as he helped me wipe the dishes, “my mother’s going to find I’m just the best little K. P. she ever knew.” “When I get home, I’m going to lock myself in the house and then I’m going to lose the key and stay right there for a month,” announced another. “Who’s in your house?” “Just Mother. She’s good enough for me.” Sometimes I have thought that three things have stood as concrete symbols of all that was desirable to the American boy through his ordeal over here: a dollar-bill, the Statue of Liberty, his mother’s face. And only a shade less touching than the doughboy’s realization of all that is implied by “Mother;” is his attitude of chivalrous idealism toward the American girl. Once I ventured to say something in praise of the women of France. “But they’re not as fine as our girls!” came the instant jealous rejoinder. “No _Mademoiselles françaises_ for me, thank you. I’ve got a little girl of my own back home!”