One could hardly rub the side of a magic lamp and have a completely equipped canteen materialize as the fulfillment of a wish. Magic lamps have not been particularly numerous in France these last few years. If they had been France might have been spared at least some of her great burden of sorrow. And so, even for our resourceful Red Cross, buildings could not always be provided, nor chairs, nor counters, nor even stoves. That is why at Vierzon, a little but a very busy railroad junction near Nevers, there was, for many months, only a tent. But for each dawn of all those months there was the cheering aroma of fresh coffee steaming up into the air from six _marmites_, as the French know our giant coffee containers. And the figures of American girls could be seen silhouetted against the glow of bonfires, while the line of soldiers, cups in hand, which started at that early hour, would continue for at least another eighteen, or until well after midnight. Remember, if you will, that making coffee for a canteen is not making it for a household dining room. One does not measure it by teaspoonfuls. It is an affair of pounds and of gallons. The water--ten gallons for each _marmite_--was procured from a well which had been tested and adjudged pure. The sandwiches, with their fillings of meat or of jelly, were not the dainty morsels which women crumble between their fingers at bridge parties. They were sandwiches fit for fighting men. They were the sort that hungry soldiers could grip with their teeth. Because of the necessary secrecy in reference to the exact numbers of passing troops, in turn because of military necessities, the American Red Cross was not permitted during the war to keep an exact record of the number of men who visited its canteens. But where hundreds were accommodated, even at as comparatively small a place as Vierzon, thousands were fed at the larger places, such as Dijon or Toul, for instance. And it is to be noted that in all these canteens food was being served to regular detachments of the A. E. F. as well as to casuals leaving or rejoining their commands. In the great September drive of 1918 a canteen was set up by the roadside at Souilly. Night and day and without intermission it was maintained. It was there that stretcher bearers and ambulance drivers were given hot drinks and warm food--all that they wanted of both--and where sometimes they toppled over from sheer fatigue and wearied nerves. From this one tent--and this is but one instance typical of many, many others--three hundred gallons of chocolate were served daily. And while bread was procured with the utmost difficulty, no boy was turned away hungry. Many times the snacks of food so offered were, according to the statements of the soldiers themselves, the first food that they had received for three days.