Lumber was scarce, almost unobtainable in fact. That did not discourage our Red Cross. One of the lesser buildings in the compound was quickly marked for destruction and actually was torn down in order to supply the lumber needed for the repair of the others. Windows were put in and glazed, doors were hung, wall derricks and hoistways rigged, roofs made water-tight, and the ancient cobbles of the courtyard scrubbed until they were almost blue in their faces. All the stables, the vehicle rooms, and the office quarters were disinfected, electric lights were installed in every corner, fire extinguishers hung throughout the buildings, telephones placed in each department, racks and bins for supplies constructed, lettered, and numbered, smooth cement walks laid to connect each building with its fellows--and not until all of this was done did the Red Cross men who had volunteered for the long hours of hard manual labor really dare stop for a deep breath. "Talk about Hercules," laughed one of them when it was all done. "He had better look to his old laurels. He never did a job like this--in ten days." It took the folk of the neighborhood a long time to realize what had happened in ten days. Yet there it was--if so you were pleased to call it--one of the largest "retail-wholesale" stores in all Paris, with some 15,000 tons of supplies in place in the racks within a fortnight after the herculean and record-breaking cleansing task had been finished; and fresh stuff arriving daily to meet the needs of the hard-pressed peasantry and soldiers of France. And in a little time to perform similar service for the men of our own army and navy over there. Yet, unlike any other general store in the world--wholesale or retail--this Red Cross one was open for business every hour of the day or the night. Comfortable quarters were prepared and furnished for six workers, who volunteered to live in the warehouse and so be prepared at any hour of the night to receive and execute an emergency call for supplies. One huge task of this particular warehouse was the re-sorting of volunteer or donated shipments. From a period in the early progress of the war the Red Cross accepted only supplies shipped to its general stores--in no case whatsoever to individual organizations--and ordered that all goods should be sorted and re-packed in France for distribution there. So one big room in the Rue Chemin du Vert was turned over to this work. It never lacked variety. In one actual instance a big box sent from some city in the Middle West burst open and the first thing that met the gaze of the Red Cross warehouse workers was a white satin high-heeled party slipper poking its head out for a look at "gay Paree." And it was by no means the only tribute of this sort that thoughtless America gave to starving France. There sometimes were real opportunities for censorship in the re-sorting room. * * * * *