The Lakeland Evening Telegram

THE BLACK COAT AND THE RED
(By Margaret Widdemer of The Vigilantes)
(Miss Widdemer has just returned from a visit to the cantonments of the West and South in the interests of the War Camp Community Service She is the author of "A Rose Garden Husband" and her new series of Camp Fire Girls books proves that she knows girls-in war times and peace times.)
An old English proverb says:
"The black coat and the red
Turn a poor woman's head."
The red is khaki now, but the proverb still holds good. Somehow a boy in khaki seems different. It is almost a shock to see a brown-clad lad reading the same baseball magazine, whistling the same tunes, as he did when he wore a business suit
The uniform makes us feel as if there was a difference. He is at once more and less our own-and we feel as if we could speak to him, as we wouldn't have thought we could when he wore a gray or blue suit and was on his way to the office. He's different, somehow.
We feel just that way-all of us.
Only he isn't different. He's just exactly the same lad he was in citizen's clothing, the one girls would have been ashamed to flirt with.
And-this is the thing to remember, even if it doesn't seem true-he'll just the same personal, American-boy way-whatever his individual way was before-about being "picked up." If he's the wrong kind of boy he'll let you do it, and if he's the right kind he'll think just as much less of you, as he did before he went into the army.
You promised the Secretary of the Treasury he could depend on you for a certain loan to the government each month. See if you can't keep your promise.
Back the boys.
Make good your war savings pledge.