Shed Sheds", which argues that a "place of retreat" is a "male necessity" which provides men with solace, especially during their retirement. In contrast, in the novel "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons, Aunt Ada Doom saw "something nasty in the woodshed" and retreated to her bed for half a century. To woodshed, or 'shed, in jazz jargon, is "to shut oneself up, away from the world, and practice long and hard, as in 'going to the woodshed'." The word is recorded in English since 1481, as "shadde", possibly a variant of shade. The word shade comes from the Old English
Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross acquire a Belgian chauffeur named Maurie as an ambulance driver; he provides comic relief for the book, in somewhat the same way as the chauffeur Wampus does in "Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John". The protagonists cope with military bureaucracies and confront the horrors of the battlefield — though Baum, "in keeping with his Van Dyne persona...kept his descriptions mild." Beth has previously had a year of nursing training; but Patsy is a neophyte who is shocked at the conditions she encounters. Doctor Gys reacts with paralyzing fear on his first exposure to combat, but his medical discipline soon takes