"-W WHO ^tUW^ .«&. :hurchill alii iui V 1 YOU WHO CAN HELP A train about to leave for the front on Christmas morning "We decorated each coach door with a bunch of mistletoe and a French flag." See page 102. YOU WHO CAN HELP PARIS LETTERS OF AN AMERICAN ARMY OFFICER'S WIFE AUGUST, 1916 — JANUARY, I918 BY Mary Smith Churchill ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1918 By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (incorporated) b<\0 ILLUSTRATIONS Page A train about to leave for the front on Christmas morning. Frontispiece At the headquarters of " The American Fund for French Wounded" at the Alcazar............. 42 Mollie and her filleul......... 84 Photographs of the result of treatment with ambrine...........152 Mme. Carrel............168 Ruins of the Mairie at Chauny.....194 " Here we were in lines the Germans held for two years and a half "......198 " No Man's Land " between Noyon and Vic-sur-Aisne...........202 On the way from Serancourt to Roupy . . 208 A woman receiving a rabbit at Brouchy . 224 Ruins of a house in Roye.......232 " We found Roye very much in ruins " . 250 Diplome de belle action........270 YOU WHO CAN HELP YOU WHO CAN HELP Paris, August 9, 1916. After we sighted land, it was only a matter of a couple of hours before we ar- rived at the mouth of the Gironde, fas- cinating with two tall lighthouses on either side of the entrance. The country side, too, was fascinating, with everything won- derful and green, the shores white, with sand and big chateaux here and there with red roofs. It was about a five-hour trip up the river, — a river filled with boats and a few tor- pedo boats. At the mouth of the river we lost our convoy of seven torpedo boats. We docked at Bordeaux about eleven at night, but no one was there except the usual men about a dock, and no one was allowed to land. At the right of the dock we could see a huge German prison camp, which was tre- mendously interesting to watch from the boat. Moll was sound asleep when we docked, and I turned in about midnight, deciding that Marlborough was probably [3 ] You Who Can Help coming down on the night train from Paris. This he did. He arrived about nine Monday morning, and you know our joy of seeing him. He used his military pass, and was allowed to walk right aboard. We left the ship about noon; his pass caused only a chalk mark on all my lug- gage and nothing was opened. I never saw so much wine in my life as we saw there; there were squares where there were millions of casks, and trucks and wagons filled with nothing else on the streets. We went to a hotel which was fascinating, but reminded me so much of Manila. There we stayed until train time. Our first glimpse of soldiers was in Bordeaux, which seemed full of them, hundreds just back from the trenches, with their horizon-blue uniforms and their trench helmets, and all covered with white dust as to boots and clothes, and endless others who were just going back to the battle front. We took the one o'clock train and were fortunate in getting a compartment to our- selves, so that the nine hours on the train, although hot, passed quickly. At every station officers and soldiers of every Allied country got on and off, and at the stations [4 ] You Who Can Help Red Cross nurses were there with food, water, and aid for any who wished it. It was all tremendously impressive. We arrived in Paris at ten-thirty and were met by Captain and Mrs. B----, who had a car and brought us up here to this hotel, where Marlborough had moved a week ago. It is on rue Belloy, on one corner of the Place Etats-Unis. Yesterday morning after our breakfast in our rooms, Marlborough went for the trunks and Moll and I wandered out down avenue Kleber to the Arc de Triomphe. We lunched here early and had fine things to eat, but so much! I shall be fat in a week, stuffing in this fashion. After lunch- eon we wandered out to the shopping dis- trict, where I purchased two lovely hand- made waists, at about 24 francs each, which these days means $4. Lack of hav- ing any fresh waists but what I had on made this purchase necessary. At four we went to the Cafe de la Paix. Never could I tell you of the procession of uniforms which went by. Before the war apparently Paris was filled with Ameri- cans, Germans, English, and everything else; now it seems nothing but French, and absolutely everything breathes of the [ 5 ] You Who Can Help war, which is going on only sixty miles away. The wounded are everywhere and military motors are dashing along with men in uniforms, on every street. And nearly every woman not in black is with a man in uniform. But everywhere are women with their French mourning, a long crepe veil, too pathetic, as you see them by the score. Marlborough received orders this morn- ing to go to the front for about five days on the 19th, this time to Verdun. So in the next ten days I have to do some map study and some electric-car and metro study. Paris is wonderful. I am impressed with the vastness and solidity of all the buildings. They look as if they were built once and for all time. We are about to take tea with the C-----s somewhere. My love to you all and I wish you all could see and feel the war spirit of this wonderful city. [6 ] Paris, August 12, 1916. If I could only remember to buy a pen how much happier I should be; this French one looks like a flamingo's beak. Thursday morning Mrs. B---- came in her sister's large limousine and took Moll and me to see the apartment at 3 rue Verdi again. We were more delighted than ever with it. In the afternoon we left cards for Admiral and Mrs. C---- and Mr. and Mrs. H----. This French cus- tom of making the first call is too curious, but I suppose I shall get used to it: the stranger has to make the first call. Then we stopped at the Terrace Cafe Fouquet, and such a sight, — uniforms and medals. Yesterday was Marlborough's birthday, the first we had celebrated together for a good many years. At noon C—— blew 1 in, looking stunning in his Belgian uni- form. He quite insisted that we lunch with him, but as it was his last day with his family, before going back to the front, I would n't hear of it. As we were dining out, I had a birthday luncheon for Marlborough and Moll at Petit Durand, a marvelous spot, with won- [7 ] You Who Can Help derful food. The place was filled with officers and American Ambulance men. At six we asked C----- to meet us at Fouquet's. Captain B----- joined us, and we sat for about an hour listening to C----'s tales. He had his curious " truck-effect " automobile he came in from the front and he took us down to the Embassy and then brought us up here. Moll was waiting here for our return and was thrilled to see us come flying up in this great war car. She got in with us and had Marlborough take a picture. At eight we dined with Mr. and Mrs. H----, and their son who is a captain in the British service at the Plaza Hotel. The other guests were Sir Thomas Bar- clay and Captain and Mrs. S----- of the Marine Corps. The latter was an opera singer, belonging to the Theatre-Comique here. For five years she was in comic opera with Francis Wilson and the last five or six years has been starring in Grand Opera in Paris and on the continent, known as Mme. Sylva. She interested me hugely and is beautiful to look at. She told me to come and have tea with her Tuesday and she would sing for me. The H----s are fine, and young H---- [ 8 ] You Who Can Help looked very smart in a perfectly new British captain's uniform. He is the man who stood in water for seventy- six hours, laying the cable, that Marlbo- rough wrote to me about before I came over. A few months ago, as he was sit- ting in his room in Ypres dining with two friends, with his dog at his feet and a Tommy servant standing behind him, an aeroplane dropped a bomb on the house, killed his two friends and the Tommy serv- ant. Needless to say the little cur dog is his best friend and he was with him last night. You could hardly believe half of the tales he has to tell. We had a marvel- ous dinner and a wonderfully good time; everyone is so interesting. To-day we lunched with Captain and Mrs. P----. When we go out, one of the two women who own this little place eats with Moll. She speaks English. Last night she took Moll out on the ave- nue du Bois de Boulogne after dinner, and she is going to take her out again to-night, as we dine with Major L----. I feel that I am living in quite a social whirl, but it is just a case of another American turning up, and Marlborough's friends are doing many nice things for me. [9 ] You Who Can Help We have decided to take the wonderful apartment at 3 rue Verdi which is on the Bois, off rue Henri Martin. I stopped writing here yesterday for so many aeroplanes were flying over our heads that I just had to hang out on the balcony. When you see them in bunches it is quite thrilling. Last night we dined with Major L----- at D'Armenonville. Is n't that a marvel- ous place? It was a glorious night with a full moon, and the place was a picture. With the time changed it is fairly light at eight o'clock, but as soon as it got dark and the place rather brilliantly illuminated, they stretched, like drop curtains on a stage, big curtains all along the front and across the entrance, and from an outer row of trees surrounding the place, to shield the light from being a brilliant spot for the German aeroplanes. You understand these curtain effects are not within fifty or a hundred yards of the pavillion, for of course at this season practically all the tables are in the garden. It has wonder- ful food but, I imagine, wonderful prices as well. After dinner we motored in the Bois [ 10 ] You Who Can Help and then down town to see Notre Dame by moonlight; it was glorious. Paris is wonderful. The atmosphere of being in this place with the nation at war, is something indescribable. I wish you were all here to feel it. This letter is somewhat disconnected, but I write at odd moments when I have the chance; when I get into my own home I shall try and do better. [ ii ] 4 rue Belloy, Paris, August 18, 1916. You see we are still here although we took over the keys to our apartment yes- terday and moved our trunks there. I wish you could have seen us in the act of moving, — one horse in a tiny coupe, and the three of us, and on top my two trunks, Marlborough's long uniform trunk, his steamer trunk and two field lockers. Moll and I are to stay here over Sun- day, and Marlborough leaves for the front, Bar-le-Duc and Verdun in the morn- ing, and will return in a week. In the meantime Moll and I will try and have our new apartment running smoothly, and a home of our own in Paris established. I find I can get about without any trouble in the metro and surface cars, and yet I expect to get lost and find myself many times this next week. I find that looking about for small but necessary household things takes more time, and more French, than doing any sight-seeing. I had to use the pocket dictionary, all my French and fluent use of both hands, to buy and have sent two dozen coat-hangers. [ 12 ] You Who Can Help If I had lived at a house number higher than ten I could n't have had anything sent. To-day I had to go back and get some more, but my French was so fluent the man looked alarmed! I must go back to Sunday when I finished a disconnected letter to Esther. That day at three we took a funny little train out to Beaucrisson where the M----'s car met us, and we motored to Salle St. Cloud to their beautiful country-place. They asked us out for tea and for supper, and we had a most delightful time. Moll had a glori- ous time with the three children, two boys and a girl. We took the nine o'clock train back, having had a delightful Sunday in the country, and as it was rather hot we appreciated it all the more. Monday I was delighted to have dis- covered a wonderful French cook, with excellent references, though she could n't speak a word of English. I engaged her and had her meet me at the apartment to see what was needed. I listed what she wanted, told her to stock the house and to expect Moll and me for luncheon on Monday. I was greatly relieved, but yes- terday she sent word to me that she had a chance to take a position with a duchess, [ 13 ] You Who Can Help which speaks for itself, and I am still look- ing for another French treasure. So my first French cook left before she came, which sounds Irish !' Monday afternoon we went to Mrs. M-----'s for tea. She is at 3 rue Verdi, and it is her daughter's apartment we have taken. Tuesday was Assumption Day, and everything was closed as it was a feast day. In the afternoon we took a boat up the Seine to Chatelet, and then hoped to go inside Notre Dame, but we could n't get in, so we wandered along Boulevard St. Michel and got another type of Parisian life which was most entertaining. We sat down in one of those terrace restaurants, and watched the procession of curiosities. Moll knew some of them were dressed up in fancy dress! But just when you are amused at some freak woman, comes this never-ending procession of cripples, arm- less, legless, and blind and distorted faces. Oh, it is so pathetic, yet they all look cheer- ful. Often you see both an arm and a leg gone, and the other day in the Bois three soldiers and a girl were driving by, and one man had both legs and one arm gone, yet they were all happy and jolly and glad to be alive. [ H ] You Who Can Help Wednesday I spent in shops and engag- ing a housemaid. I have one Mrs. M----- recommended; she is English, — that is her father was; her mother was a Russian, and she has always lived in France, — some combination! She speaks French but can speak English, is about forty, and has been a nursery governess at times, so will be excellent in taking Moll about and to school, and to see the girls. I don't believe this one will forsake me for a duchess, but at present I have n't a cook in sight. In the evening Tom R-----met us at Fouquet's and dined with us at St. Cecile. After dinner we went to the. Rotonde to see a little touch of Latin Quarter life. But at ten-thirty Paris absolutely closes; not only bars but everything closes its doors and every light is out. You could n't get or stay in any of these places after ten- thirty to save your life. You see it is on account of Zeppelins, and it is a military law, so no one questions, no one tries to evade the law and no one complains, but all understand. So at ten-thirty the Paris world is not one of eating, drinking, and bright lights, but through partly lit streets people are [ is ] You Who Can Help wandering home or to some private house. Even there it is a law that the heavy in- side curtains must be drawn over the win- dows when lights are lighted. No one worries about air raids, but of course people realize that precautions must be taken. Aeroplanes are flying about overhead day and night, patrolling and watchfully waiting, and at times they are as numerous as the taxis below. Yesterday morning we went to the Hotel des Invalides and saw General Cousin decorate about a hundred officers and men with the Legion of Honor and Croix de Guerre medals, and about fifty relatives of deceased heroes. It was the most thrilling but most pathetic ceremony I ever went to. One could n't see it with- out the tears streaming down and yet it was most inspiring. The escort troops formed on two sides of the inside court, then the band struck boldly forth with the Marseillaise as General Cousin came in, followed by over a hundred officers and men, hardly one not wounded and ban- daged in some way; some with their whole faces bandaged, some with just their heads, many footless and legless, on crutches; one was brought in on a stretcher. [ 16 ] You Who Can Help They formed in the center and then a long line of fifty or more widows, with their long veils, and men, and one little girl about six; they stood on the other side of the square. As each man's name was read with the reason why he was given the decoration, General Cousin walked up to him, tapped him on first one shoulder and then the other with his saber, pinned on the medal and kissed him on both cheeks. The ones who got the Croix de Guerre he simply tapped on the shoulder with the saber, pinned on the medal and shook hands. And to the families of those killed as heroes in action he simply handed the medal. It nearly killed you to see them, heroes that they were, crippled for life, yet it was in- spiring to realize that right in the midst of this world war you had a chance to see a ceremony of this kind. On our way back Moll and I went in to see the wonderful tapestries from Rheims Cathedral which were on exhibition at the Petit Palace. I never saw such wonderful things. I didn't realize such tapestries existed and I was so glad to know they were there, for nearly everything like ex- hibitions, galleries, etc., is closed now. I [ i? ] You Who Can Help believe the Louvre is not open at all to the public, or if any, only a small, unimportant part. Of course many of the most famous paintings were sent to Southern France at the beginning of the war. I guess no one knows where most of them are. [ 18 ] 3 rue Verdi, Paris, August 22, 1916. Here I am in my Paris home, and I would give worlds if you could walk in and see how fascinating it is. I can hardly wait for Marlborough to get back and see it, now that we are actually settled here, for you know we came in two days after he left. He has only been gone three days, and I have had two letters from him, which seems like getting back to old times. But I am so happy for him that he is actually at Verdun. Friday afternoon I went to Mrs. S-----'s (her husband is an aviator and she the Mme. Sylva of Grand Opera fame), for tea. She said if I would come she would sing for me, so of course I went, for I have never known anyone like that before, and it is wonderfully in- teresting. She had Andolf, a noted pian- ist, there to play her accompaniments. He could n't speak a word of English, but if he had been interested in dish towels, coat- hangers, and floor cloths, we could have talked together fluently. But I am not in [ 19 ] You Who Can Help the French drawing-room class yet. How- ever he talked French violently, and I took a guess at what he ought to be saying, and talked in English, and we were both per- fectly happy. He is most attractive, and I never imagined one could have such a wonderful touch on the piano as he has. He is going to pick out a baby grand piano for me to rent. Saturday noon Marlborough left, all tied up in his uniform, with more London leather than a real Britisher, with a Sam Brown belt and London riding-boots, and a field bag, etc. Moll and I went down to the Embassy with him, but did not pur- sue him farther. In the afternoon we made our first trip to the Bon Marche where we got a few little things for the house, but I was not very thrilled with it. The shops on rue St. Honore and avenue de I'Opera take my fancy. I have n't bought a thing in the world for myself or Mollie but the two lingerie waists which I bought when I first came. Winter things are beginning to look tempting, but why get them for Paris ? Absolutely no one dresses in the slightest, so far as fancy clothes go, and you would not feel comfortable in anything but very [ 20 ] You Who Can Help dark clothes, and would be conspicuous in anything else. Sunday we went to the Jardin d'Ac- clamation in the Bois. The greenhouses were beautiful, but Mollie naturally had a fit over the animals, and had a nice ride on a camel. Elephant riding was too slow, and driving an ostrich, she said, hardly paid, for the ostrich went so fast it was all over before you knew it, but apparently in camel riding you got your money value in sensations. Monday morning we moved out here, and are happy to be in a place of our own. In the afternoon Mrs. B----- came and took me to the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly. I can never begin to tell you about it or the extent of the plant and organization. First, the building is superb. It was built for a school of some sort, and was just com- pleted when the war broke out, so it was taken at once by the American Ambulance. It extends the entire length of a city block in size and is built around a court, which is more than a court, for it is a huge garden, but the building extends around all four sides. I went all over it from top to bot- tom, and through all the wards. There r 21 ] You Who Can Help are endless wards of just ten beds, and two or three of fifty. The Boston ward has fifty. Although they all look so com- fortable, the human misery and suffering is too terrible to write about. When we got to the operating room, the doctor who was operating knew Mrs. B----well and asked us if we did n't want to come in, it was such a wonderful case. There were seven doctors there to witness it, and to study the wonderful things done in this war in the way of surgery. The poor man had had the side of his face and jaw blown off by a shell, and they were building up a new face for him. From a professional point of view it was marvel- ous beyond words, but after the first ten minutes I told Major Shaw (one of the American Army medical observers) that if I did not leave they would have two patients instead of one. I did not know whether I would like to have a little more ether and pass out, or whether I had had too much. When I came out you may be sure I sat down on the first thing that looked like a seat. But there was no sit- ting for anything but a long breath and a quick recovery, for there was a steady line of stretchers coming and going with poor [ 22 ] You Who Can Help mutilated souls. I have begun to think that the blind are perhaps blessed and better off than the mutilated, for they are spared seeing themselves, which to the mutilated must be agony. The thousands and even hundreds of thousands of head and face wounds almost prevent the poor men from looking human. I suppose that they are glad to be alive, but with the life before them it is a pretty hard outlook. I am sure that half the men in Paris have but one leg, and what a tiny proportion of wounded Paris represents! The nearer you get to this war, the more useless and terrible it seems. I have n't started to lead my blind yet, and in fact I have n't decided just which way I will give my extra time later on. Every- body seems to be working in a different spot and all feel that their work is the most interesting and important. The one thing I have promised to do and have signed for is to go to the Ameri- can Ambulance every Wednesday from three to six, and work in the doctors' and nurses' canteen. This is what it is: there is a huge room in the basement, with gas- burners one length, and a thousand large teapots and hot-water boilers and great [ 23] You Who Can Help hampers of rolls and cakes. Two ladies go each day and just plain " rustle " food for doctors and nurses. One might politely call it " pouring tea " but it is all the same as a Childs' restaurant. Of course there are hundreds of nurses and auxiliary nurses and doctors, and I am told the place is packed for three hours. It is just a moment's relaxation for them, after a hard day, and before they get the patients all fixed for the night. [24] Paris, August 25, 1916. Wednesday afternoon I poured tea just as fast as I could from large tanks for three hours. There was an interest- ing Russian woman there with me, and the maids who are there to wash cups, etc., said we had served three hundred cups. There are lots of attractive Ambulance doctors and drivers, and many attractive nurses, and of course most of them are Americans and speak English, although of course, there have to be a certain number of French. I heard lots of interesting things, and found them so cordial and chatty. One man came in and said he wanted a cup of lye, not tea, for he had been operating on one case after another since daylight. Five trains of wounded had come into Paris in twenty- four hours; everything has been pretty hot up in the Somme district the past few weeks. Last night about eleven Marlborough came back from Verdun, where he had had a wonderfully interesting time, bringing r 25 ] You Who Can Help back a big hunk of a German shell which just missed him. He also brought back a case of bar-le-duc from Bar-le-Duc. It is such a relief to have him back! [ 26 ] 3 rue Verdi, August 28, 1916. I received the sweater you forwarded to Moll, and many thanks. We both think it looks remarkably well. I know you are anxious to know how I find things as to expense. I have not tried to get anything but some socks for Moll which were excel- lent but also expensive. Silk stockings look fairly good, but also nothing that can touch what one gets at home as to both quality and price. Around nine francs you can get a better stocking than you can at home for that price, but I don't pay that much at home! There are lingerie waists for $5, and perfectly stunning ones for $10. Furs and clothes look fairly inexpensive in the win- dows. Gowns are cheap and also good. I find it this way, the necessities of life are very dear, and the luxuries are not. I miss running around the country in your car, and my shoes are all wearing out! I can get along in trams and in the metro, but as for directing taxi-drivers beyond the usual places and numbers our French does not agree. [ 27 ] You Who Can Help I am keen to have Mme. F---come back from the country, for I am so anxious to become fluent, and everybody agrees she is the one to study with. I can under- stand my cook in practically everything she says now, which is a great help, for a week ago I could n't get much of anything. I am beginning to understand in a general way everything I hear around me. And Paris these days is really French; Ameri- cans are scarce. I have wished so many times that I had seen the Paris before the war, to compare it with. I wonder which French Red Cross Hospital your boxes went to. It would be interesting to know whom you heard from, but they number in the hundreds, for half of Paris is prac- tically hospitals; perhaps it was written from the headquarters of the Red Cross. Yesterday morning I went to a large ouvroir, which is practically a large workshop. It was an enormous house, wonderful as to furnishings, tapestries, etc., and the whole place is now a workshop. They employ a hundred or more paid Frenchwomen to do the work, and the clerical work; the giving out of clothes, etc., is done by volunteers. The work they wanted me to do there [ 28 ] You Who Can Help really required speaking French, to say nothing of writing it, and there are plenty who can do that. This work should be gone at slowly and carefully, for every- body wants you to do something different, and you might as well get something you can do well and have it worth while, than to drop into some work that others could do better. Mollie has adopted a filleul, which is a godson: the captain of a company that has men whose family and friends live in the invaded country, and who have no one to write to or hear from, and are worthy and of good character, sends their names in here to the different ouvroirs, where that work is handled, and, with the name, a personal letter from the man asking for a marraine, which is a godmother. The one Mollie chose is in the artillery and has not been able to hear one word from his family since the war began, two years ago; he wanted to hear from some- body somewhere, as he has practically lived in the trenches for two years. So at the ouvroir they wrote to him and to his captain saying that Mollie had adopted him, and she has to write to him, find out what he wants, and occasionally send to- [ 29 ] You Who Can Help bacco, etc. And he can write about his life at the front to her. It is a wonderful work and beautifully organized and man- aged, and to have a little personal word in their lives keeps them from thinking they are just fighting-machines. Saturday morning Marlborough and I were called at five-thirty and went to la Halle, which as you know is the big market. The cook went with us and did all the buying; we just enjoyed the place, and the people. Many of the men looked like pirates from " Treasure Island," and an- other time I shall go with a camera. The cook brought home everything but the family cat, and, among her purchases, a gorgeous bunch of American Beauties, stems about a meter long, for one franc! Sunday afternoon Marlborough and I went over to the Luxembourg Garden where I had not been before; is n't it beau- tiful ! We dined at Tavern Pascale, which was wonderfully interesting, and such food! It was a sight to see as we entered, — the place fairly well filled, and around the wall a line of trench helmets, bayonets, and belts hanging, as their owners dined, and every kind and combination of uniform [30 ] You Who Can Help about, you could think of. As we sat there and dined I felt as if I were on the stage; nothing seemed real, and everything had a mediaeval look. Marlborough is leaving again next week, for the island of Corsica to inspect the German prison camps, to be gone about a month. Two young men from the Embassy and Major C---- are going. He is going with one man down in the lowlands where there has been much malaria, and they have asked for a doctor inspector. Marlborough and the other man are going to the camps in the moun- tains. They go to Marseilles and Nice, then to Corsica. [ 313 Paris, September 3, 1916. Yesterday, we put in a sight-seeing day at Versailles, going out at noon on the train, as you know it is only a matter of about half an hour on the train. When we landed we walked up to a perfect little cafe where we had lunch on the balcony. I saw more military activity than I have ever seen before. In peace time there are large garrisons here, but to Moll and me it looked as if in war time the entire French Army was here. The streets were filled with marching, drilling troops, and we stood and watched a line of covered motor trucks on their way to " somewhere in France." I only wish I had counted them; we watched them until we decided there was no end to them, and so far as I know they are still going down that street. The whole place was swarming with soldiers. Aeroplanes and big guns were being dragged through the streets, and the heavens were swarming with aeroplanes of various kinds, and two big dirigibles were overhead. [ 32 ] You Who Can Help Moll and I were so busy with the mili- tary, that we almost forgot there were other things to be seen. After lunch we went to the Palace, and with a guide did it according to Hoyle. Of course you have all been there, and it is wonderful, is n't it? I was so interested in the Vernet and Delacroix war pictures, and I would n't have minded a good fox- trot in the crystal ball-room. After " doing" the Palace we dismissed our guide, and spent the entire afternoon wan- dering in the gardens. / think we are rather accomplished to take a French guide, and understand, but, as Moll says, " when we have n't heard anything else for a month, of course you have to understand, — you can't help it." I am glad she feels that way about it! To return to the gardens at Versailles, — did you ever see anything more beau- tiful in your life? Such vistas, and such extent without monotony, and such glori- ous flowers! It is something you all know, so why should I feebly describe it, — but is n't it glorious? But something else which I have n't words to describe is the way I felt as we [33 ] You Who Can Help took the train back to Paris. I could barely put one foot before the other, and felt as if I had taken a forty-mile horse- back ride, and had slept out in the rain afterwards. I felt stiff, and two hundred, and Moll and I at one time thought we would have to take off our shoes and throw them in the fountain, we were so tired of them. I had on a pair E----- gave me because they didn't fit her; tell her for me that they don't fit me, either. The next time I go sight-seeing I am going in my blue satin boudoir slippers! Monday night Marlborough and I went up into Montmartre, and dined at the " Clore " (which is " the nail "). It is a perfect place, small but attractive, with old prints and china on the walls, and down- stairs there were not more than eight tables and the bar. Marlborough was the only man there not in uniform, and there was every kind of uniform you could imagine. As the men got up to go, after they had dined, and put on various overcoats and hung on their equipment, some with their tin boxes with the gas masks, it did n't seem as if it could be real,— these men in the midst of war just having a little look in, [ 34 ] You Who Can Help in Paris, before they went back to the trenches. Such a sight makes the whole seem to me like the stage; it doesn't seem as if I could be living here in the midst of it all. V [ 35 1 Paris, September 7, 1916. Yesterday I had a very busy day at the Ambulance. There were about four hun- dred to feed, and I saw some pretty sad cases. A boy there in whom I have been so interested, with both arms gone at the shoulder, one leg gone, and the other gone from the knee, is evacuated to-day, and he is so unhappy to leave. He is a poor peasant boy from Southern France, and who can care for him every minute of his life? And yet someone will have to. The only thing he can do is to read, and some- one has to turn the pages for him to do that. But at the Ambulance everybody has been thoughtful of him, and he hates to leave. Mrs. B---- is doing some work with the blind, and is trying to persuade me to go there and help them in their carpet weaving, but I have a couple of weeks more to decide, before Moll goes to school. I think I would rather have a look at various places of this relief work, and not take something which requires the same thing every day. [ 36 ] You Who Can Help One day (that is, seven hours) at one of the big railway stations, giving food to the poor men when they come in direct from the trenches, tempts me, and you only have to sign for one day a week. I am told it is tremendously interesting, and there are still other days for other things. All these things are wonderfully organized, and they do not like to have you shift from one thing to another, so you want to start where you want to stick. I had a cable from Marlborough to- night saying he had arrived at Bastia, Corsica; when he returns I hope to know more about Corsica than I do at present. Moll and I are both well and getting along all right, but it seems queer to be alone in this place. [37 ] Paris, September 12, 1916. I trust that my letters do not seem as strange to you as they do to me but I fear I repeat and I know I wander from one thing to another. Mollie and I have been busy as possible every minute since Marl- borough went away, and we have had two letters from him so know that he is all right, and having a most interesting trip. Last Friday afternoon I took Mollie to see the Somme motion pictures at the Rejane Theatre. They were frightful but wonderful, and to see the pictures, with the battle of the Somme still going on, and to sit right among all French people, one- half of them soldiers, — it is something she will never forget. They had an orches- tra of a dozen pieces, the first music I have heard here, and when they played the Marseillaise and the audience as one rose to its feet, and all the soldiers stood at attention, with hand saluting, it was most impressive. Sunday it poured in torrents all day, and yet Mrs. B----- ventured out, and came up for luncheon and I had a very nice time [ 38 ] You Who Can Help with her. And through her I had a chance to go to see a Miss Vail, who is at the "American Fund for French Wounded." I went down there yesterday morning. The headquarters is the building next to the " Ambassadors' Cafe," on the Champs Elysees. This was apparently a similar cafe. Now it looks like a warehouse on the main floor, but it is curious with the many gilded chandeliers above, and a gold staircase leading to what was once the place to dine, a circular balcony overlook- ing the main room below. The balcony is filled with small tables, but at each only a girl busily banging the typewriter. Here the clerical work is done, and the rooms leading off the balcony are the main offices. Apparently all the work done by the A. F. F. W. branches in America is marked that way, so from the clearing-house here in Paris the hundreds of cases are sent to this place. Here they are opened, and of course each case is a mixture of things — shirts, socks, pillows, etc. — so they are assorted and put in store-rooms. Long lists of the needs of the various hospitals are on file. My work is to be in this department, doing up these packages in waterproof paper, and sewing burlap [ 39 ] You Who Can Help around them. Incidentally, these pack- ages are the size of the kitchen stove! They asked me if I would get official papers from the Embassy to use with my passport, so that sometimes they could send me out on the motor trucks with the things for the hospitals, for many of the base hospitals are well out from Paris, and many in the war zone, though they are far from the danger zone or the zone of activity. This would be most interesting and I hope that the chance comes to me some day. In the meantime I shall try to make good at the unpoetic job of getting the bundles ready for the long line of war motors waiting for them outside. Until Moll is in school, I am going down four afternoons a week, — Monday, Tues- day, Thursday, Friday, — so that with Wednesday at the Ambulance, I have but Saturday for foolishness. But it is too ridiculous to have tea at the Ritz with a bunch of females four or five days a week, and here, there, and the other place the other days, yet you can't help it unless you have a good excuse, like a steady job. I appreciate people being so nice to me, but while I am in Paris I want something dif- ferent. I may never come here again. [ 40 ] You Who Can Help Yesterday was the first afternoon I have had free since Marlborough left, so I took Mrs. B----- and Mollie out to see the American Ambulance. She was anxious to see it, and we went over but a small part of it. I thought Mollie ought to have a glimpse of it, to realize what an enormous thing a big military hospital was. We only went through the fracture wards and the general part of the hospital, so she did not see any of the things to haunt her. We came back here for tea, and Mrs. M----- and Captain and Mrs. B---- dropped in, so if I am not out busy doing things, there are always people here, so there is not a moment to get lonely. But it does seem queer to be living in my own home, in a foreign country with just Moll. Yet she is such a companionable little soul and so adaptable, that one could never get lonely with her about. [ 4i ] Paris, September 14, 1916. I reported at the American Fund for French Wounded to-day at two o'clock, with my required French blue garb. I worked like a sweat-shop worker until six- thirty, with about ten minutes off for tea at five o'clock. When I arrived there were three motor trucks waiting to be loaded for Verdun. A hurry-up call had come in for certain things. I looked through a hundred so- called comfort bags to add certain things if not found and put them into two pack- ing-cases. From the store-room I counted out and tied up, in lots of one hundred, five hundred pillows. I was then sent to a room to sew up in burlap ten enormous bales of bandages. We got them done, and off the motors started. How I would have loved a picture of it! The last two hours were spent in un- packing and putting in place in store- rooms cases of things from Boston. The two girls who worked with me to-day are both motor drivers, but happened to have a day in. They were most entertaining [ 42 ] At the headquarters of "The American Fund for French Wounded" at the Alcazar The author is at the extreme right of the picture. You Who Can Help and " powerful cute-looking." They re- port for duty at 10 a. m. and are on until 6 p. M., when they take their cars back to the garage. At the garage they care for their cars entirely themselves, excepting the washing; consequently, in the early morning or late evening hours, they are working in the garage. One girl said she worked on her car until two o'clock in the morning the other day, after coming in from a ten-day trip. [ 43 1 Paris, September 17, 1916. French bread, which is one thing I al- ways wanted to come to Paris for, is no more, for flour is darker and poorer in quality and not so plentiful, so I am told that the bread to-day should not be men- tioned in the same breath with the real French bread. Sugar is scarce and butter poor and very expensive. From all we hear of infantile paralysis, it must be fearful in America. I don't believe I told you that our boat was the last one over before they made all children from New York go into a two weeks' quarantine on landing. Imagine Mollie and me in Bordeaux for two weeks, with nothing but wine and prunes for excitement. I am enthusiastic over the work I have gone into. Friday Miss Vail asked me if I would assist her in the office that after- noon, so from two until seven I worked with her, straightening out things which were piling up and getting beyond anyone, — rather a hasty promotion, but I shall doubtless be back in the manual-labor part [44 ] You Who Can Help to-morrow. Yesterday was my day off, but they gave me a commission to buy a couple of dozen school children's capes for some refugee children in an outlying district. As there was not much money for such things, I spent most of my morn- ing locating cheap but warm ones. The big drive during the past twenty- four hours has been a real gain of terri- tory, but I hate to think of the trainloads of wounded which are sure to be piling in here to-day. Of course the French loss does not compare with the German, but there are always the hundreds of wounded. When people at home make little pil- lows of any and every size out of pieces of cretonne, filled with bits of anything, they may be sure they are all used. To- day came a hurry call for seventeen hun- dred of these pillows to be sent at once to the Gare St. Chappelle, for the American Ambulance. This is the railroad station where all the trains with wounded come in, a little way out from the city, so as to keep all the unnecessary horror away from people at large. The wounded all come in tagged; there are four kinds of tags, designating the dif- ferent degrees of seriousness of the [ 45 1 You Who Can Help wounds. At the station they are assorted. The little pillows are used on the stretch- ers, to give them some degree of comfort, under wounded head, leg, or arm, as the case may be. The pillows are of various sizes and are wonderfully useful, as they are of no real value as to material; when they have done their duty once, most of them naturally have to be destroyed. I had a cable from Marlborough this morning, saying that he was about to go up the west coast of Corsica and would not be back until the twenty-ninth or thirtieth. [ 46 ] Paris, September 22, 1916. The past two days I have put in some hard work at the A. F. F. W., last night staying until seven. To-day, while we were working, two French soldiers came in. They were brothers and the younger had been sent to get some warm underclothing, for he was going right out to the front this after- noon. His elder brother, who lost an arm a few months ago, was weeping, knowing, as he did, what his brother was going to. He himself could not go back because he had only one arm, nor could he go home to his mother, who lived alone, for his home was in the invaded country and he did n't know whether she was alive or not. The case was a pathetic one, and although you see and hear of many such every day, this is the first time I have seen anyone, man or woman, who has given in to his anguish. Wednesday afternoon Mollie and I went to Miss Holt's " lighthouse," or phare, as they call it here. It is really wonderful the work the blind are doing, [ 47 ] You Who Can Help and you can hardly believe the way they get around the house. The method is not to lead them in any way, to make them lose their independence, and although they may be stone blind you see them going about alone, up and down stairs, without even faltering. The hard- wood floors have tracks of matting from door to door, and if they find themselves off the matting they know they are going wrong. About two feet in from the wall, around every room, on the floor, is a slightly raised board, not enough to stumble over, but enough to make them realize the wall is near. Many of them were learning to write on a typewriter, others were modeling in clay, and many learning to read by raised letters. Others were weaving sweaters, rugs, etc. They roller-skate, fence, and ride bicycles around a court for exercise, and why they don't run into each other no mortal knows. The home is a glorious one for them, but to hear the little tap, tap, of the little bamboo canes which they carry with them is too pathetic. Young men, strong and husky, — to be instantly blinded in battle is too terrible. Most of them look abso- lutely normal as to eyes. There are not [48 ] You Who Can Help many blind coming in now; most of them lost their sight early in the war, before they had proper protection, the trench helmet, masks, etc. The blind are pathetic, but the mutilated get all my sympathy. I told you of the lad at the Ambulance who had lost both arms and both legs. When a friend of his came in to see him, as he was convalescent, his first words were, " Was n't I lucky." I call that some courage and pleasure in being alive. C 49 ] September 25, 1916. It is so hard for me to remember which one of the family I wrote to last, but it makes little difference, and I shall begin like Moll, " Dear Folks." You wanted to know if I was busy " freshening " up my French. Any I had was not worth freshening up, — what I am waiting for is to get something entirely new. Mme. Fritche, with whom I am going to study, has just come back, so in another week I shall begin. I am sorry to say that I am not looking forward to it with the slightest bit of pleasure, but it has to be done. I took Molly over to the Cour Fenelon to-day, when I went to see Mile. Larible about her school; it was unique. She is a dear little old French lady, speaking a little English, and Moll is to begin on Monday. There are about four hundred girls there, but many only go twice a week on Cour Days. She is going every day at nine and stay until four-thirty. I don't envy her a bit, but Mile. Larible said if she had her luncheon there and went out [ 50 ] You Who Can Help to walk with the fifteen or twenty girls who stay to lunch she would learn much more rapidly, and she was sure that in three months she would learn to talk, read, and recite all her lessons in French with- out any difficulty. It is a grand chance for her, but it sounds rather tough to me; still I know that that is the way to get it. A cable from Marlborough says he leaves Bastia for Nice to-morrow so that will bring him in Paris on the twenty-ninth, and, after a month away, I shall be glad to get him home again. He has n't been here more than three weeks since I landed, but I am delighted for him each time he has been away, for they have been such interesting trips. I only hope that he will stay at home for a while, but I suppose that he will be anxious to get out to the Somme, though I am not very keen to have him out there right now. Will you tell E-----that the men in the trenches adore all the candy we send out to them. Candy and tobacco seem to be two much appreciated articles. And while I think of it, please tell her to have all the socks tied together with a piece of yarn at the toe or top, as a pair, before they are sent out. The hundreds [ 5i 1 You Who Can Help which arrive otherwise are enough to drive one mad. I have heard of many small hospitals here which are just suffering for things. What are they working for in Andover at present, — just the Red Cross fund in general? [ 52 ] Paris, October 2, 1916. Marlborough had a most interesting time in Corsica, but he was glad to get home. Last Wednesday I had a very busy day at the Ambulance. We were all sorry to hear of the death of two Americans that day, Rockwell, the aviator who has done so well, and Kelly, who had just come over to drive an ambulance. He was killed by a German shell, and it was only his sixth day at the front. It seems more pathetic when you know he was just starting his work. Moll has had her first day at school, and fortunately the queer part strikes her humorous side. She will be quite happy there I know, and I am confident that she will get real French, and that is the one thing I care most about for her this winter, after keeping well. To-day at the A. F. F. W. someone brought in a blind man for one or two things that he needed. He was a pathetic sight, with a scalp and forehead wound, one eye simply closed and the other so [ 53 ] You Who Can Help mutilated it had to be covered, stone blind in both, and one arm gone. But he was cheerful beyond words, and wanted to come to see the work the American women were doing. As he was taken through the different rooms he was told all about it, and as I gave him the things he was to have, he was as pleased as a child. Each article of clothing he felt all over with his one hand, and they were all just what he wanted. He is very anxious to have his wounds heal sufficiently for him to go into the blind industrial school, for he thinks he can learn to make brushes with the one remaining hand. To me it would seem discouraging, no eyes and only one hand, but they are all so wonderfully courageous. [ 54 ] October 5, 1916. Yesterday I had a busy day, as they all are, and a most interesting one. The morning as usual at my job, and at noon Marlborough and I went to luncheon with Mme. L----, who lives alone, as her hus- band is off on special missions for the French government. Her home is just like a museum and story-book combined. She has given over all the lower part of her house as a home for convalescent sol- diers. She has about twelve at a time, and takes only men from the invaded terri- tories who have no place to go to after they leave the hospitals, and before they are able to go back to the front. When we rang the front-door bell, a soldier opened the door, and in the big square hall was a huge round table set for about a dozen or fifteen. And in the adjoining rooms were soldiers, phonographs, and " Tip- perary." We went upstairs, where Mme. L-----has her part of her own house, and as we lunched in her fascinating dining- room the sounds of the life below sounded just like a cafe scene before the curtain [ 55 ] You Who Can Help goes up on the stage. Naturally her stories of her " family," as she calls them, were interesting. She was the first person to apply to the French government for con- valescents after the war broke out. Since then she has had over five hundred, so you can well imagine the good she has done and is doing. Right after luncheon, I had to go to the Ambulance, where I had a very busy time until about six. After I finished my duties I went up into one of the wards to see an English soldier who is having practically a whole new face made. His nose, upper jaw, and upper face were shot away. At an English hospital where he was sent, they said it was hopeless to do anything for him in the way of his appearance, but that the American doctors were very dar- ing, so they sent him to the American Ambulance. He now has a nose and upper face, and said that next week he was going to have another operation, and have an upper jaw ancj lips made. He spoke about it as you would of having a new suit made. [ 56 ] Paris, October 10, 1916. Yesterday I spent much of the time help- ing load ambulances outside and packing, baling, etc., for the moving-picture man. Some woman is to lecture in America, and these pictures are to be shown to illustrate the work done. Compared to what is being done on the Somme, it does n't seem much! This afternoon I had my third French lesson. My three lessons have been pain- ful, and the studying between times is almost more than my brain enjoys, but I must get it as rapidly as I can, for with Germany's new U-boat performances our days in France may be numbered. To-day we were all stirred up by the news of the ships torpedoed in the Atlantic, and we are all thankful to be on dry land. E-----mentioned in her letter the possi- bility of her Red Cross working for some especially needy hospital here. Of course the things they can send are needed almost everywhere, but if they would like to have their work more personal by sending it to me, and through me hearing about the [ 57 ] You Who Can Help hospital and the use their things are put to, and about the various cases, I shall be only too glad. I know of so many, but would pick out the most interesting as well as the most needy. Of course the most needy are not the ones right in Paris. I will find out how things can be sent with- out expense, yet through the clearing-house, to me, for everything is done to make it easy for relief work. [58 ] Paris, October 15, 1916. This has been rather an irregular week as to mail, on account of the " submarin- ing " at your end. The mail which came in on Monday has not been given up by the censor yet, so I have not heard from home for some time. Now that we have gone back to the old time, it gets dark at five o'clock, and to wander around these dark streets is a good deal of a trick. In my next letter I am going to have a lot of definite proposals for your Red Cross work; of course you must consider them as just proposals, and if nothing ap- peals, just say so. If I ask you just what can you send, I suppose your answer is: what do you want? The general needs are: sheets, pillows, pillow-cases, towels, rubber sheeting, blankets, pajamas, shirts, comfort pillows, handkerchiefs, sweaters, surprise bags, — what we think of as com- fort bags. These they adore, and keep them hanging at the head of their beds. They are, of course, usually made out of cretonne and contain writing-pad, envel- [ 59 ] You Who Can Help opes, pencil, handkerchief, pipe, small mirror, puzzles, chocolate, etc. You see it gives the poor convalescent ones a few possessions of their own. And when you see them by the hundreds in the hospitals you wish you could give each one some- thing. Letters in them they adore. As far as supplies are concerned, hot- water bags, rubber gloves, rubber cushions, etc., are among the most called-for articles. [60 ] Paris, October 19, 1916. Yesterday I had an interesting day at the Ambulance. The past two days the fighting on the Somme has been frightfully severe, and the patients are all beginning to arrive. The wounded from gas bombs are particularly bad, for the poison goes so quickly over the whole system. On Monday I was sent out on my first " delivery " to a hospital in St. Germain. A Miss Dunham from New York was my driver and we went in an Overland motor truck, which had a huge red cross painted on each side of the covered truck, and words stating that it was for the " Blesses Francais" and given by the Comite Boston, and a red cross on top of hood. It was a glorious afternoon, and for some unknown reason, it did n't rain, so the thirty-mile run we had was a joy. It did seem odd to be dashing up the Champs Elysees on a motor truck filled with sup- plies for a hospital, where many men had arrived unexpectedly from the frightful fight of the day before. I never expected to drive in that fashion in Paris. Half way out, a clamp which held one [ 61 ] You Who Can Help side of the windshield came off, and the whole shield and long extension rods to the front of the truck, had to be removed. So Miss Dunham and I took out all the tools and looked them over, and after struggling with about a million bolts, we succeeded in removing the whole thing and went on our way. We found the hospital Auxilliare No. 20 delightfully situated in an old convent, and we were shown over the place from cellar to roof. It was most attractive, and everything was being done which could be done for the poor suffering souls. It is a small hospital, with not more than eighty beds. We carried some cigarettes out, but not expecting to be taken over the entire place we did n't take many. I was so sorry for I should have liked to be able to give them all some. Norman Prince's death was a blow to the young aviators. His memorial service is to be to-morrow morning at the Ameri- can Episcopal Church here. The Ameri- can aviators number only about fifteen and they are very intimate, as they all work together and live in one mess. Norman Prince makes the third to go. [ 62 ] Paris, October 24, 1916. Thursday I went with Marlborough to the memorial service for Norman Prince in the American Episcopal Church. The main part of the church was very well filled with American, French, and English offi- cers. The beautiful flowers were banked against the chancel rail, with an American flag on one side and a French flag on the other. Just before the service began, all the American aviators in their French uni- forms came in and took the front seats and then all the American Ambulance men, in the Paris section, came in and sat behind them. It was all very impressive and very sad. Yesterday afternoon I was sent out again by my workshop on " deliveries." We went on the Magnolia truck to a hos- pital down at the lower end of Paris, miles beyond the Bastile. After our business was done, they asked us, as usual, if we would like to see the hospital. As this is part of our work, of course we said we did. The building was more like a warehouse than anything else; it all looked cold, gray, [ 63 ] You Who Can Help and cheerless, and, I should say, always without sun. As it was an improvised hos- pital, it looked pretty primitive. Most of the men looked pretty sick. Now about your work in Andover. I had a nice talk with Mrs. Lathrop, the head of the work here, and she said the best results had not come from working for one particular hospital, for whatever its needs might be now they would be quite different in a week from now and very different, still, by the time a special box could arrive. Should you wish to send here through the A. F. F. W. and indirectly through me, send anything, surgical dress- ings and all; the box will be marked and invoiced from Andover and from you. As it is received here, if there is any desire to hear from it in a personal way, they are only too glad to make it possible, as they do with nearly all. You will be told where the articles were sent, and, as they are sent, the hospital is told the articles are from you,^ and bunches of letters for you from the individual men will arrive here and be forwarded to you. I shall be notified where the articles were sent and can go there and send you pictures, and tell you all about it, — that is, if it is in France and [ 64 ] You Who Can Help not in Salonica! As soon as you are once started, a flood of personal literature pours in, and that is what makes the work more interesting. And if it is work entirely by workers for the Red Cross will you let me know? And now that you know about it, you can decide if you would like to hear from your efforts. This victory at Verdun is a joy to Paris and I hope it was made without too great a sacrifice but, dear me, with tons of big shells being used, as well as all the hand- grenades and bayonets, there has to be a frightful toll of dead and wounded. The invasion of Roumania is disheartening but we hope for a turn in the tide there. I hope Moll's filleul, Paulain Leon, will write to her something of the Verdun vic- tory; he is in the artillery there and we hear that the artillery fired continuously for one hundred and five hours. Natu- rally the men were changed but the guns never ceased. [65 ] Paris, October 27, 1916. How I wish before beginning your win- ter relief work, you could be in Paris a few days with me! To be among these won- derful French people, with their nation at war, is an inspiration itself. I can't tell you emphatically enough, that the French are doing all they can to relieve and help their own people. You have only to stop and think that this war has been going on for over two years to realize what there is to be done. Unless one has actually been through big military hospitals in war time, one can't realize the horror of war. To see hundreds — and to know there are thou- sands more like them — of young men and men in the prime of life shattered and suffering from shrapnel and bomb wounds too horrible to describe! Poor souls, they are mutilated for life, but are all glad to have done what they could for France, and for the principle in which they believe. After visiting a hospital you realize what a blessed thing it is to have health, [ 66 ] You Who Can Help and hands and feet, and you realize, as never before, that the well and strong must work while this war lasts, to provide for the needs of the suffering. I only wish I had, right here in my house, those nice warm hospital shirts, socks, and the rest of the things which I saw at the Guild last winter. I know you have done a lot, and I know that every- thing you have done has been appreciated by someone somewhere. I would only too gladly have things sent directly to me, and would beg for them, but the best way, as I have said, is the most economical way. To have things shipped without any ex- pense to any individual or organization, — that is the only way to do. Clothing, surgical dressings, and hospi- tal supplies are all handled here at the A. F. F. W., — in fact everything for the wounded that one could think of. These supplies are sent by individuals or com- mittees in America, marked for the A. F. F. W., and are shipped without ex- pense. They go through the clearing- house here, simply as a matter of routine, but they are not touched. When they arrive at the A. F. F. W., a record is kept of the articles received; [ 67 ] You Who Can Help they are assorted here, and, as demands come in from hospitals near and far, the needs are met as far as possible and as quickly as possible. Each day camions bring in boxes from America to the receiving department, so each morning you see a line of camions waiting for the bales and cases, which are the result of a day's work in the packing department. For hospitals in and near Paris there is a motor service, made pos- sible by the generosity of various com- mittees in America. The Boston, Mag- nolia, St. Paul, and San Francisco com- mittees all have delivery trucks bearing their names, all with volunteer drivers and all the drivers are American girls. It has been my good fortune, as I 've told you, to go out on many deliveries, so in that way I have seen where some of the things are sent, heard the appreciation of the hospital directors, and, after going through the wards, I have realized how modest they were in their demands, and how much more they could have used. But economy is practiced to its bitter end; even surgical dressings are washed, steril- ized, and used again. You are doing all you can, I know, but [ 68 ] You Who Can Help here I am in Paris, not many miles away from the terrible Somme and Verdun, see- ing the wounded pouring into Paris, and for once in my life I am not too proud to beg. Do let me know if there is anything you can do for these wonderful French people. We now include Salonica and Morocco, and to-day we started preparing fifty thou- sand surprise bags for Christmas in the hospitals. Sunday we had Mme. L---- here for luncheon, — the one who has the home for convalescent soldiers. We had n't seen her for several weeks and during that time she had had a frightful experience: she had heard that her husband had been taken from a boat on his way to Holland and had been shot as a spy. For three weeks this was all the information she could get of him. Finally — and suddenly — he turned up here in Paris. [ 69 ] Paris, November 8, 1916. Sunday morning a Miss Brent got per- mission for me to go with her to the Gare du Nord to see a troop train off to the front. And it was a sight, — eighteen hundred men going back after eight days' permission in Paris, going back, poor souls, many of them, never to return, and you may be sure there was not much hilar- ity at leaving Paris for shot and shell and the destruction of human life. But the calm, natural, business-like way in which they accepted it was a revelation, as showing what people can do if they have to. At the train no one is allowed inside the gate, so once a man has passed through, he has said good-bye to family and friends, if he have them. Going through that sad crowd is heart- rending. But once inside the gate, where Miss Brent and I were allowed to go, I got as excited as a child of two. Miss Brent had on a truck about fifty packages of socks, handkerchiefs, soap, cigarettes, pate, and jam, to give to men who, she had found out, had come from the invaded country. Their eight days could not be [70 ] You Who Can Help spent with their families so of course many cases of this kind are very pathetic. I turned all the money I had on Satur- day night into French cigarettes and wished I had about a thousand packages instead of about two hundred. My inten- tions were to give them only to the pa- thetic, forlorn-looking ones. This I did at first, and presently I was surrounded by a mob; their bourgeois French was beyond me and my two hundred packages of cigarettes lasted about as long as a snow- ball on a griddle. Aside from those to whom you gave cigarettes, all that could wanted to grasp you by the hand, and have you say, " Bon chance" (good luck), — never, " Au revoir." This mass of faded and stained blue uniforms, trench helmets, and gas masks was something weird to be among and a part of. Just before the train started and all were about in the coaches, we began at the end of the train with a bunch of French flags and ran the length of the train, putting one in each coach. Such excitement! A train filled with Andover boys on their way to an Exeter game was nothing compared with it. The [ 71 ] You Who Can Help train seemed miles long and extended out of the train yard almost into the country. As the train started, they hung their flags out of the windows, as well as their eight- een hundred helmeted heads, all saying, " Vive les Americaines" and it was a won- derful sight. And as the train went round a curve they all flocked to the opposite windows in the coaches, and we could see this long line of French flags waving until the train was out of sight. After the excitement of doing something for them was over, it was rather depress- ing, but I only had to turn around to greet a train coming in direct from the trenches, — as many men with mud caked on up over their boots and leggings, their over- coats all mud, and all with their huge knotty trench canes, but all of them wreathed in smiles at the thought of Paris for eight days. Out of the huge crowd waiting for them, every now and then a man, woman, or child would fall on a soldier's neck. But the other I had had a part in, and of this I was simply an onlooker. My idea now is to save my sous for a million cigarettes and again get permission to go and have enough for all. [ 72 ] Paris, November 14, 1916. You ask if we want any warm things. As yet it is not cold, and our apartment is wonderfully heated, which is saying a lot in Paris at any time and particularly so in war time. This afternoon I called at the Embassy on the Sharps, and they were in one room with all the doors closed. They had n't had any coal and were keeping one room warm by a wood fire. Coal is ordered but they have n't been able to get it delivered. An order came out yesterday that all stores in Paris must close at six o'clock, and one day a week all theaters, cinemas, etc., in order to save coal and electricity, so that all public defense needs can be met. That is so that they can have more for munition factories, etc. They are even talking of closing restaurants in the same way, and of taxing every restaurant check over five francs. Dressing in street clothes in public places, since the war began, has been simply a custom until now. Last week an order was issued that no man or woman in evening clothes would be admitted to a [ 73 ] You Who Can Help theater until the end of the war, so now the only time evening clothes appear are at dinners in private houses. I seem to be switched off from warm clothes, but I am quite sure that none of us needs anything at present. But if you could send us a nice warm pair of socks for Moll's filleul we should be delighted. I bought him a pair of so-called hand-knit ones last week, but I know they are half cotton, and not for standing in a trench this winter. Moll is very much interested and is very faithful in looking after him, and she realizes that she is the one person he has to do anything for him. After this last Verdun offensive she was anxious to hear from him, and the first minute he had to sit down he wrote to her that he was all right but that the cannon- ading was so terrific that you could not hear yourself speak. Tuesday night we went to the Cafe de Paris to a dinner for a British general who had just been through the terrific Somme struggle. In one attack nineteen hundred men in his brigade were killed. I heard such stories of hand-to-hand fighting and gas attacks as one could scarcely believe, they all sounded so like savagery and bar- [74 ] You Who Can Help barism. The general said that he had withdrawn his men back of the line to rest and then it had occurred to him that a few hours in Paris away from the horror would do him a world of good. So with an aide and a French captain he got into his car and motored in, in six hours. They had had tea at Ciro's and we were fortunate in being asked to the dinner his brother gave for him. He would spend the night and motor back in the morning. Does n't that seem odd? It certainly makes you realize that this war is still on French soil. [ 75 1 Paris, November 17, 1916. I hope a boat will sail from Bordeaux this week. None sailed last week and let- ters were sent by way of England, which always takes ages. The sugar supply is getting terribly slim, and you can't buy even your pound, unless you make some other purchase, and you can't get it anyway unless they know you. And all day long there is a line outside of Potin's — the best grocer here — extend- ing more than a block. And now the question of heat and light is being met. The lights are turned off in every store at six o'clock. It surely adds to the dimness of Paris. Last night when I walked home about six o'clock, the whole place looked mediaeval, — a little candle burning here and there in a store. To go to a drug-store and have them search for a tube of paste by the flickering light of a candle is too odd. Certain sections of the city have n't had any lights the past week. I have bought some common candles at large prices to be ready in case we had to [ 76 ] You Who Can Help do without lights altogether some night. It is cold out of doors here now. There is no sunshine. Our apartment is comfort- able so far. Wednesday, when I was at the Ambu- lance and saw the nurses and orderlies carrying many of the " Blesses" down- stairs in their arms, I could n't think what had happened. They were having a concert downstairs, and as they have been without electricity in Neuilly for several days, the elevators were not working, so the only way to get the poor things down to the concert was to carry them. And they had to go by the big open doors of the canteen where I was serving tea to the doctors and nurses. Coming down seemed a task, but to see the procession on the way upstairs and back to bed, all by the light of a few candles, was a sight. Night before last I had the most won- derful experience you could imagine. Eight of us decided that we would go down to the canteen in the Gare du Nord and give the men a " party." The canteen is a big room in the cellar of that big rail- road station and run by Mme. Courcelle, a Frenchwoman. Here men just in from [ 77 ] You Who Can Help the front without friends or money can get a bunk for the night. They come to this room, a guard checks, as it were, their equipment, so all responsi- bility of that is gone, and they are given a bunk. There is a long narrow table the entire length of the room, and two rows of bunks on either side, two hundred in all. The bunk is simply a blanket and pillow on a frame a couple of inches off the floor. Many just reach their bunks and sleep the sleep of the dead. If they have to take a night train they are wakened. The joy of a place to sleep, with all responsibility gone, and no danger of being killed the next minute, is heaven to them. We provided sandwiches, coffee, red and white wine, cigarettes and candy for our " party," and had a piano sent there. I went down about nine o'clock and the table had the appearance of a party, with carnations scattered down the center, which the men adored. There were about a hundred and sixty there then, each man sitting on the end of his blanket waiting to see what was going to happen. No one else but Mme. Courcelle had arrived, and even she does n't speak one word of Eng- lish. She told me the others would arrive [ 78 ] You Who Can Help shortly, but I could wait for no one to arrive to open the party, when I had enor- mous boxes of cigarettes. So I started on the joy of giving cigarettes to them all, and putting a box into the pockets of those who were asleep. They were like children in their joy and appreciation. A few had some pretty pathetic stories, but as a lot they were very jolly. Shortly the others arrived with more cigarettes, candy, etc., and the party began. They all sat at this one table, and we were kept busy pouring wine and coffee for them, and listening to their chatter. Very early the singing began. They began naturally with the Marseillaise, and they all stood up with trench helmets in their hands and sang it with every bit of lung power they had. I thought the roof would come off the station. It was the most wonderful thing I ever heard, and in the most impressive surroundings. Many with the horror of war only a few hours behind them, and many to be back in the trenches in the morning, yet all sing- ing the Marseillaise as though the victory for France was all they asked. They adored the singing as much as we did, and I am sure they sang everything] [ 79 ] You Who Can Help that has ever been written in French. Many asked if they could sing solos, hav- ing been on the stage, or in the opera be- fore the war, so each was given a chance to do his parlor trick. About eleven o'clock at the door appeared a Russian general and his staff. The men all rose and sang in curious words the Russian National Hymn. They came in and they were a marvelous-looking lot of men, all about six feet or more. The general asked for the Marseillaise, so again the men sang it from beginning to end. While they were there, in came General Pau and his staff. At this the men nearly blew up! — for Pau is very popular, and no one but Papa Joffre could have given them more joy. He is a dear-looking little man with white hair and moustache and his right arm gone, and the merriest twinkle to his eyes. If you use your imag- ination to its limit, you can in no way do justice to the way they sang the Marseil- laise for Pau. It was wonderful and I shall never forget it. Presently the Russian ambassador and four men with him came in, so our humble soldier party had a very distinguished ap- pearance. The Russian general was going [ 80 ] You Who Can Help from one spot on the front to another and was waiting for a train, and heard of our canteen party. Pau and his staff had come to the station, as did the Russian ambassa- dor, out of courtesy to this Russian gen- eral. So we had the pleasure of meeting them all, and they added to the men's pleasure. At midnight the party broke up and I came home having had one of the most wonderful times I ever had in my life. The appreciation of the men was pathetic and you only wished you had the strength and the money to do it every night. [ 81 ] Paris, November 23, 1916. Moll was interested to hear from you that someone wanted a filleul. I can get one for her, and for anyone else who will be good enough to write to the poor souls and send them a few things they need once in a while and things they don't need but like. And if she or anyone else who will take one thinks it easier they may do the letter writing and send me a few dollars once in a while and I will send packages for them. They can send me articles, too, that they would like put in the packages. These packages are all carried free of postage here; they have to be sewn up in white cloth which I will have attended to. And if they can't write the letters in French, I can (don't laugh!) and will get my French teacher to correct them before I send them. Last week Mollie had such a nice letter from her filleul near Verdun, thanking her " a million times " for the last package we sent, with socks and thin rubber chaussettes which go over the socks and, we hoped, would keep him warmer and dryer, for [ 82 ] You Who Can Help they are suffering with the cold and with frozen feet. In this letter he told her that in the middle of the night before their canton- ment had been shelled by the Germans, and when he went to that part of the trench where his horses were, they came to him for protection, and he stopped to " kiss them on the head." He, like every other artillery driver, is devoted to his horses and he loves to write Mollie about them, for they are both American horses. The day after this letter came, another arrived, saying, " At six o'clock this morning a Ger- man aeroplane flew over our line and dropped a bomb twenty-five meters from my baraque (hut for horses); the baraque is no more and both of my horses are blesses" (wounded). We all felt as if something had happened to our own pri- vate stable. We do not know how seri- ously they were wounded, but are glad he is all right. He comes in on permission in about two weeks, and we shall have to use all our spare sous in making his days here happy ones. Financially a filleul can amount to what you want it to, but on an average a dollar and a half a month, done carefully, is what it amounts to. [ 83 ] Paris, November 28, 1916. Yesterday when Marlborough and I re- turned home we found Mollie and her filleul in the petit salon, talking like magpies! Out of a clear sky he had ap- peared at three o'clock! He is a nice- looking fellow, only twenty-six, but he looks older, with his dark hair and mous- tache. He had on a brand new uniform, new shoes, leggins, and hat, which his cap- tain had issued to him to go on permission. He got his permission unexpectedly and did n't have time to write Mollie, and I was so glad she was at home. She had talked with him four hours when we ar- rived, and knew everything he had ever done, so she must have understood every- thing he had said to her. He had had tea with her. How I wish I had seen them! Although she had cakes, she asked him if he would like some bread and butter. This had pleased him to death, and Mollie said, " Mother, I guess there is n't any more bread and butter in the house, for he hadn't had butter since 1914!" [ 84 ] Mollie and her "filleul," Poulain Leon, of the io6th Regiment of Artillery You Who Can Help Marlborough found him very well in- formed and interesting, and we were both delighted with his most courteous manners; yet how could he have them when he has been living in the trenches for two years and a half? He was so grateful for what Mollie had done for him, and she had made him tell her what he liked and needed most, and had asked him what he wanted to get in Paris. He told her that he wanted to get the three service stripes, for his two and a half years at the front, put on his new uni- form, so Mollie said, " I told him to get it done and I would pay for it, and it made him so happy." The French soldiers are paid four sous, or four cents, a day, so unless they have families to do things for them, their mar- raines are a god-send. He looks upon Mollie as a fairy godmother. After dinner Mollie gave him some money to spend in Paris, and after she had gone to bed he stayed here until eleven o'clock telling us most interesting things. He is staying at a canteen in Rouilly which is for men from the invaded coun- try, so it is not any expense to him or to us. He comes here for tea with Moll and [ 85 ] You Who Can Help Marlborough to-morrow; it is my day at the Ambulance. We shall send him to the cinema in the evening. The poor fellow said it was so odd not to hear guns all the time, for he has been at the Verdun front since last May, and not one day away from it. [ 86 ] Paris, December i, 1916. We thought of you all many times yester- day, recalling where we were last Thanks- giving and wondering where next year would find us. We let Moll decide what she would do — have a dinner at home or go to any cafe she might choose. We nearly died laughing when her choice was to go to the Italian restaurant on the Boulevard and have macaroni! So Marl- borough and Moll came down to the A. F. F. W. for me and we all went to the Italian restaurant, where Moll and I had a delicious mushroom omelette and tons of macaroni, while Marlborough ate tripe! Now you know that is a most origi- nal Thanksgiving dinner. I am wondering what your papers are saying of conditions here in France. It is hard to see some of the optimism I have found prevalent here now giving way to a certain amount of pessimism. Rouma- nia's defeat is a calamity which everyone recognizes. And if Russia should break away from the Allies and offer a separate peace — France and England seem ter- [ 87 ] You Who Can Help ribly small! And France has sacrificed so large a part of her man-power already. We are still absolutely comfortable as to everything but can see that different times are near at hand. The two meatless days will never bother us, for there is always macaroni! The regulation about these two days goes into effect soon, and they are talking about forbidding the making of all cake and pastry. But with eggs $1.20 a dozen, butter seventy-five cents a pound, and sugar hard to get, what encouragement has one to make cake ? All the laundresses had advanced their charges ten per cent, and there is talk about closing all the laun- dries on account of lack of coal. If they do we shall have to wear black. The lights in Paris are now not enough to speak of and last night at eight it looked like a city at three o'clock in the morning. [ 88 ] Paris, December 4, 1916. It has been freezing here, but when I think of the thousands suffering in the trenches not many miles from here, cold out of doors, when you have a warm house, is nothing to complain of. I had a most interesting motor trip to-day, going to Villiers-sur-Marne to take things to a big tubercular hospital there. The hospital, I believe, was more pathetic than the hospitals for wounded, for all the poor souls seemed to be there waiting to die. I know many are cured, but nothing but a miracle would cure any of the poor fellows who were occupying the hundred and sixty beds in the hospital I visited to-day. This has been a busy day, ending with the departure of Moll's filleul to-night. We have given him, I know, a happy eight days, and now he is back to Verdun again. It made Moll very happy to do things for him, and to-night when he left she gave him a pacquet to take back with him, with socks, tobacco, cigarettes, crackers, jam, and conserves, etc. [ 89 ] You Who Can Help Yesterday we took Moll with the fil- leul to Luna Park, to a " Fair pour le Soldat" and we did everything there, in- cluding the cinema and the concert, and Moll enjoyed it all as much as he did. And she bought him an electric pocket- light which made him perfectly happy. I hated to have him go back. He goes as far as a place called Dugny by train, and to get to his battery he has to walk six miles from there, over a road that is continually being shelled, for it is the road on which all supplies and ammunition are taken to Verdun. [ 90 ] Paris, December 8, 1916. You ask for suggestions about what to send. I can only say: everything will be welcomed. And if you are making just one kind of garment, let your shipment be just that; it does n't have to be a mixed box. Anything and everything warm will be wonderful for the next three months. If they have any big drive in the Vosges, think of the warm things needed. Canton-flannel pajamas and hospital shirts they are al- ways short of, — and " gilds" which are gray Canton-flannel sleeveless shirts and, I should think, easy to make. If you can get hold of gauze by the bolt they like it that way a lot. And if you can make part of a shipment rubber goods, it would be excellent: rubber sheeting, tubing, gloves, hot-water bags, and ice-bags. In the pock- ets of garments that have pockets you can put a handkerchief and a picture-postcard with a word and some name and address; the men adore them. If your things hap- pen to be cotton instead of Canton-flannel, they are just as much needed, but at this time of year are sent farther — Salonica, [ 9i ] You Who Can Help for example — and will probably take longer to hear from. Things like socks — things with per- sonal work in them — you might mail to me, for when I go to the railroad stations and canteens I always find many poor fel- lows who are in need of another pair of socks or something warm, as they are going out to stand in cold mud and water, and so many of those gifts are more or less personal and it is hard to buy things of real wool here. Both of my maids have filleuls, cousins, and friends they are constantly getting letters from and sending things to and I try to get them the warm things which they can't afford to buy to give them for their relatives and friends. Sophie, the second maid, a young, good-looking, pink- cheeked girl, is from the invaded district and has n't heard a word from her family for two years and a half. She fortunately has a sister in Paris so that is a comfort, but you know what a strain she must be under. [9» 1 Paris, December n, 1916. To-day has been a busy one, but so much to do it has flown. I was at my " shop " —the A. F. F. W. — all the morning, with a half hour out for luncheon, and at it again until five. At five-thirty I went to a French canteen in the Latin Quarter to help serve supper, and arrived home at about eight. I just wish you could have seen this can- teen. It all seemed like the French Revo- lutionary times, and a sight I shall never forget. It is run by a Madame Destray on rue Luxembourg and the soldiers on per- mission who are from the invaded coun- try, or have n't any place to go to are given tickets which allow them to get two meals a day here, without any expense to them. All the money to run it is begged, and every morning French shop-girls be- fore going to work go down to the big mar- ket with big baskets, and beg any and all the vegetables and stew-meat they can get. The canteen is a big, dingy, grimy room, just off a cobbled courtyard, and has three long tables, each seating twenty-five men. [ 93 1 You Who Can Help And such a collection of pathetic human- ity was there this rainy night! French, Belgians, Zouaves from Morocco, and a couple of black men from the Soudan. They each get a bowl of hot soup, then a plate filled with a vegetable stew, — all kinds of vegetables stewed together, — and on top a piece of stew-meat, and bread, a bowl of beer, and about a tablespoonful of apple sauce. Mme. Destray had someone to help her take the stuff from the caldrons and put it on the plates, and my companion and I worked like beavers feeding the seventy- five starved men. They ate so much I should have thought they would have popped, but it was nothing to them. My good, bad, and indifferent French seemed to be welcomed by those poor souls who were glad to say a few words before they left. One pathetic Zouave chasseur came to me and wanted to know if I would be his " godmother," poor soul; he looked as though he had never had anyone give him anything in his life. He looked cold and poorly clad, but I had to tell him I had all I could do and keep up with, but that I would try to get a marraine for him. If I had only had a pair of the socks that [ 94 ] You Who Can Help mother knits up my sleeve, or on my feet, to give to him, it would have made him so happy. One of the two burly black men from the Soudan spoke perfect English; he said he had learned it in school before he learned French, but that he did n't have much " opportunity " to talk English and thought his French was better. With all his big words his English was better than my French, so I gave him a chance to talk English. I had to go to another room across the court for extra bread, where refugees were being fed. A motley crowd of women and children were packed into a big room which was like a cellar and were given bowls of soup. The whole thing was something I shall never forget and I hope to go again some time. [ 95 ] Paris, December 20, 1916. I was so interested to hear, in your letter of Thanksgiving Day, about the box you were to send, and I know beforehand how fine it is going to be, and I know how hard you have worked to get it together and off. The twenty-five comfort bags I shall try to get hold of to distribute myself, and am quite sure I can, and I am already planning to send some to one or two pathetic men I know about. And there are some men in hospitals I would like to give one to. Although the Fund is for wounded, the comfort bags are very often given to men who are going out,— men from the in- vaded country who have no one to give them anything. As for the blankets, sheets, rubber goods, and clothes, I can't begin to tell you what relief they are going to bring to many poor suffering souls. I have every reason to believe that I shall be able to follow up the things you send and I shall be most impatient until they arrive, and let's not consider the thought that they may go to the bottom. [96 ] You Who Can Help To-day I went to the Gare du Nord again to see a train off. It was so thrilling and so wonderful and yet particularly sad to see them all going out right on the eve of a holiday season. Eighteen hundred men went and there were just the two of us and Madame Courcelle of the canteen, who is always there. This time I started 'way up by the en- gine and had the idea of working my way to the end during the hour I had. The minute I appeared with my cigarettes, men, trench helmets, and packs, all came tum- bling out of the coaches, crying, " Vive VAmericaine " and " Avez-vous cigarettes pour les poilus!" I had a perfect time and it was a joy to give the four hundred packages of cigarettes that I had, but I hated to see the other fourteen hundred men. Then came the fun of assisting Madame Courcelle with the hot coffee, bread, and mandarins. She had a truck, with huge tankards of hot coffee and baskets of bread and fruit, and trimmed with flags. The men pile around fifty deep, with their own tin cups, and you give them coffee and bread. And to those who cannot get near enough you toss mandarins to over the [ 97 ] You Who Can Help heads of the others. They loved it, and laughed and joked over the American " bombs " and " grenades." Poor souls, — many of them in a few days will meet bombs and grenades of another kind! I am so thrilled when I go down to those trains, and I hope to get permission for Marlborough to go some day. But one can't take anyone else along, without end- less red tape. When I have my pass to go, I do not want to run the risk of losing it by asking favors. So I just thank my lucky stars that I have one, and go ahead alone. If it ever does anything but rain here I am going to see if a camera is allowed, but it has rained for six weeks straight and not since September has there been a day with real sun. All the spare moments I have had, I have been trying to think how we can meet the new economical conditions which were published to-day, to go into effect Decem- ber 26. Gas in all households is to be limited to one cu. meter per day and elec- tricity to three hectowatts. We burn as little as possible anyway, but I find my bills average about seven cu. meters of gas a day and nine hectowatts of electricity. Cutting down on electricity will be just [ 98 ] You Who Can Help an inconvenience, for we shall have to save it for the kitchen and for writing in the evenings, and for plain eating, sitting, and going to bed shall use candles. The cook said the gas allowance would only do for hot water and breakfast, and possibly luncheon. Just what dinner is to be cooked on the Lord only knows. Coal you can't get, and is like diamonds when you do get it, but I think there are bri- quettes, or something like that, which can be had in tiny quantities and don't cost quite a million. But you have no idea what a funny feel- ing it is, to be told that you can't use some- thing which could be used by just turning it on, but if your meters read over your allowance they cut your gas and electricity off entirely. This is certainly an experi- ence, living in a country at war, and it is strange how comfortable you can be, and how things that seemed necessities really are not. [ 99 ] Paris, December 24, 1916. These days are busy ones. We had a number of guests to dinner Friday evening, and Friday noon had Captain and Mrs. R-----for luncheon at the Cafe de Paris. He is a Belgian aviator. He was leaving the next day for the front again, and she was going to Dunkirk to live, so as to be near him. She was good enough to ask me to come and see her, and if I could ever get a per- mit to go, I should certainly love to get that much nearer. But about the only thing you can do is to sit in the spot which you and the police call home, and ask for nothing. The police know where all strangers are, and it simplifies matters if you stay there. Last evening — the Saturday evening before Christmas — Marlborough and Mollie went with me to Madame De- stray's canteen for the Christmas party and supper. There were about seventy- five soldiers there and we had the place quite festive with holly and flags, and the dismal canteen looked quite Christmaslike. [ 100 ] You Who Can Help The men were given a good substantial supper, and Mollie enjoyed giving them the seventy-five packages of chocolate she had tied up with tricolor ribbon. Four or five American Ambulance boys sang and played, and several other people sang or did their parlor trick. And the party ended with the men standing with caps, trench helmets, etc., off, singing at the top of their voices the Marseillaise. Before each one left, we gave him a comfort bag. To go around among them as they look over the contents of the bags is a joy. They get so excited and so thrilled over the most trifling things, and the pleasure it gives them is infinite. Mollie thoroughly enjoyed it, and as you well know was as helpful as a grown- up. One man collapsed at the table and had to be carried out, but it was only caused by a wound in his head breaking open. I feared more for Mollie than the man at the time, but fortunately she thought it was just too much Christmas and went about her business. [ 101 ] Paris, Christmas Morning, 1916. After breakfast to-day Marlborough and I went down to the Gare du Nord to see a train off. None of the girls wanted to promise to get there Christmas morn- ing, so I said I would go, for I thought it would be a grand chance to take Marl- borough. And it worked perfectly. I got him through without any trouble, and he was as thrilled as I. We decorated each coach door where there is an iron bar with a bunch of mistle- toe and a French flag. It was the prettiest thing you ever saw, and it made the eight- een hundred men so happy, and it gave the train such a festive Christmas appear- ance. We took several hundred pieces of chocolate and eight hundred cigarettes, and we both worked like beavers until the train pulled out, and then stood and waved until the last coach was around the bend. It was wonderful, and I would n't have missed it for anything in the world, and it never fails to give you a thrill as nothing else does. And the day was one of gor- geous sunshine, a thing we had n't had for months. [ 102 ] Paris, January i, 1917. There is so much to do here, and so much that can be done, that you don't know which way to turn. And there are always the special hospitals, which are interesting, — the jaw hospitals, the one-eye hospitals, the tubercular, and the hospitals for those burned by liquid fire. The trouble is that the days are n't long enough, and likewise the pocket-book. Saturday morning I went to a pathetic little hospital on rue Pouchet, off boule- vard de Clichy, which as you know is in the poorest part of Paris. The A. F. F. W gave each of the workers who had been there a certain length of time fifty comfort bags to distribute at New Year's in any hospital they wished. I wanted to go to a really poor one and I guess I found it. There was just one big room, with no windows, but a glass-effect roof, so it was very light, and fifty-three beds. It looked as if it might have been a garage at one time. There were two nuns running it. I asked who supported it and was told that [ 103 1 You Who Can Help it was principally supported by the poor people in that section of the city, and that they knew of more than one family who sent their beds and were now sleeping on the floor. Those same poor people sent bed- clothes, etc., and the forlorn place looked pretty grimy and needy. When the men saw me appear with a big sack filled with the fifty bags they were so excited that I felt quite sure a visitor was a rare thing. I went to each bed and gave them their bags, and I can't tell you what joy was in their faces as they opened the bags and examined each little thing. As always I had my big box of cigarettes and made my second round with those. This was a long process for they all wanted to show me what they had in their bags, and always to read the address they found within. And the ones who did n't find any address almost wept. A line written with an ad- dress is the most personal letter to them, as most of them have n't had a letter since the war began, and they almost blow up with excitement. It was a dreadful thing to be three bags short, but I am going to take them the first spare moment I have. [ 104 ] You Who Can Help The money you collected and cabled has just come. You are all dears and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It will begin to bless endless hearts in endless ways and I am only sorry that you can't be here and see it all, but I will write to you of it. I am looking for the arrival of your first shipment and only hope that at the Boston office of the A. F. F. W. a green ticket was put on designating it for me, for then no time is lost in my getting hold of it. I have no end of places where I want to send the things. If some of the youngsters you know would collect pictures for scrap-books and give a Saturday morning or two to pasting them in, or if they can't find time to paste them in books would send them as they are —any time you are sending a box — I can get some soldiers in the hospitals to paste them in books for me and then I will get them to the homes where there are hun- dreds of little refugee children and war orphans. They long for scrap-books. And when it is a case of magazine pictures it seems a shame not to send them. [ 105 ] Paris, January 10, 1917- This past week has seen many things go up in price, among the most common articles milk, which is now ninety centimes, or eighteen cents a quart. And there is no longer a ten-centime or two-cent postage in Paris, or France, for that matter; it is fif- teen centimes, or three cents. The papers say we are about to have sugar tickets, the allowance one pound a month per person, but that has n't struck yet. But all these things are the same for all, so you do the best you can. Cigarettes also have mounted in price, but for the French ones, which are soldier ones, we understand it is only a temporary advance. The other day I could n't get any place to sell me more than one box of a hundred; so this shortage bothers me more than any. In my last letter I told you of going to the little poor hospital on rue Pouchet with New Year's surprise bags. One day last week Mrs. C-----had a box of things ar- rive from Boston, and she was good enough to give me some sheets, hospital [ 106 ] You Who Can Help shirts, etc.; I took her with me and we went to visit the pathetic place again. It was nice to have the poor souls re- member me, and as I went from bed to bed, giving them cigarettes, they would reach for their surprise bags and say they had n't forgotten me. As Mrs. B----- was so sweet and good as to send me $25, and perfectly willing to have it spent in cigar- ettes, my first expenditure of my " fund," as I call it, was a dollar for this poor place, where a few cigarettes are like a million dollars in the cheer they give. So I told them " une amie Americaine " sent them and they loved it. I am quite sure if Mrs. B-----had been with me she would have wept like a child to see the pleasure her first dollar gave. Not only do they adore cigarettes, but to be remembered by some- one gives them a little cheer for the day. There was one pretty sick boy who had just arrived from Salonica the day before, the color of saffron and too weak to speak; he didn't look as if he could last long. The nurse said to put some cigarettes on his little table, although he could n't move and was probably too sick to notice it, but if he was conscious she did n't want him to feel that he had been overlooked. [ 107 ] You Who Can Help I put them there and said they were for him, and in a husky whisper the poor soul murmured " Merci" and tried to smile. I went into another hospital on rue Le- mercier, which is in the Clichy part of Paris, and found one of the nuns spoke English, and came from Norwalk, Con- necticut, originally. She had only about forty in her little place, and they all seemed well cared for. One poor youngster was sitting up in bed, and although he was bound up to sort of a frame, he seemed jolly and happy. He said he was so well cared for, and " I never had so much in my life." The nurse turned to me and said, " Don't you call that courage, for both his arms are gone and both shoulders blown off?" I had a Miss Dagmar here for luncheon to-day. She is a Swede and an opera singer, has been in grand opera for years. I wanted to talk with her about a party I am about to give. I have n't done anything for the blind since I have been here, for until I got here I did n't realize that an absolutely perfect knowledge of French was necessary. You have got to talk to them for amusement [ 108 ] You Who Can Help every minute and you have to devote yourself to an individual; for unless you are talking with someone personally, you might as well be down town shopping for all the good you do him, whereas in a visit to a hospital ward you can say a word here and there, and they are entertained watch- ing you with the others. So I have had doing something for the blind on my mind, and of course music is their only entertainment. And now that I have a " fund," thanks to you all, I am going to have a concert here for the blind a week from Sunday. I can easily seat in my salon, hall, and dining-room, which all open up together wonderfully, a hundred and fifty, and I am going to invite a hun- dred blind. Miss Dagmar said she would get all the artists for me, and they would all be pro- fessionals, including a Russian pianist. It will be hard to have them manage cups and saucers, so I am going to give them red wine, rolls, cakes, and cigarettes. One poor soul who is coming is blind and has n't any arms; in fact, many are muti- lated as well as blind. The ones who are just blind are principally liquid fire cases. [ 109 1 You Who Can Help Don't you think it will be wonderful? And I can't tell you how happy I am to have the money to do it. I think to give a hundred blind mutiles something besides their misfortune to think about will be a joy- [ no ] Paris, January n, 1917. I have just put my first experience in a Zeppelin raid behind me, and right here let me tell you it is, without exception, the most helpless and horrible sensation you can imagine, and may I never know another! I came in about six-thirty, and about seven came the horrible fire-engines through the streets, preceded by bugles, which only means one thing, — put out your lights, the Zeppelins are coming! Never can I describe the helplessness of my sensations. All my iron shutters were closed but those on the kitchen, and these the maids shut at once, so no lights from our windows could be seen. At the same time the telephone central turns a buzzer on all the wires and in an instant " tout le monde " knows the " Zepps " are ar- riving. I tried to be as matter of fact as pos- sible, but I was petrified. Moll said, " I wish there never was such a thing as war; I wish we were n't so far from home." Personally I would have gladly been in Bal- [ hi ] You Who Can Help lardvale. About seven-thirty Marlborough and Major L----- came in, stayed for awhile and then both departed for town to observe from some spot which was open any anti-aircraft shooting which might take place. They wanted Moll and me to go with them, but it is a very cold night, and I knew both Moll and I were extra cold from nervousness, and feared one or the pair of us might take cold or get sick, and knew that right here was the best place for both of us. Before nine o'clock the bugles sounded in the streets again, which is the " all out," " danger past," signal. So I put Moll to bed, after we had dinner. I can't say that expecting a bomb any mo- ment is a help towards enjoying dinner! [ i" ] Paris, January 17, 1917. Moll is delighted that five dollars of the money you sent is for her filleul. She is going to save it until he comes in again, which will be at the end of next month. I will send him some more socks when the ones arrive that you have sent. This min- ute I feel like putting them all on myself! It happens to be a very cold, sloppy day, but we manage to keep warm, and al- though our gas is very much cut down, we can have an open fire by ordering a sack of wood. You order wood one day — you can get only a small amount at a time — and you get it two days later, a bagful that you could easily carry under your arm. But even that is a luxury and a joy. I often wish you were all over here, for there is work here which suits you all, but there is also a certain amount of comfort in being in a country which is not harassed by war. And when I thought I had a Zeppelin on my roof, I wished I had never heard the word war, and as " wonderful experiences " I thought nothing of them. Yesterday it was snowing and " slushy" [ H3 ] You Who Can Help and a bitter day, so I took ten francs of my " fund " and with my cigarettes went to the Gare du Nord. There were sixteen hundred men leaving for the front and a dismal day it was to return to the trenches. I made my four hundred cigarettes go as far as possible and then I gave hot coffee to hundreds of them. And as the wind and snow blew down those tracks, I assure you that a cup of hot coffee was something of a comfort. A couple of North African cavalrymen came along, looking half-frozen, and when I offered them coffee, and then gave them cigarettes, one poor soul put down his pack, and took out a pathetic little purse, and was about to pay me for what he had had. And when he discovered it was a gift, he said he never would forget me, and shook my hand in farewell as though I had saved his life. After only giving them two or three cigarettes apiece hundreds stop and shake you by the hand. It did strike me as curious yesterday, as the train pulled out, and around the bend, hundreds were hanging out of windows and doors, and there I stood alone, waving a big empty blue cigarette box in each hand, and, as each coach went by, calling [ H4 1 You Who Can Help out, "Bon chancel" As the last coach pulled round the bend, and I found myself in the wind and snow, with the excitement gone, and I walked down towards the sta- tion, it struck me what a funny thing it was, — a foreign country, and all speaking a foreign language, and not one of them knowing who I was, or I who they were, and yet the whole thing seemed so personal! Mme. Courcelle, who has charge of the Gare du Nord French canteen, is always there at the train, but she was called away just before the train left yesterday. She is wonderful, so bright and cheerful; she tries to give them all a jolly send-off, and I think she always succeeds. In the afternoon I was at the Ambu- lance, and it was such a bad day that no one else turned up to help, so I did the Child's restaurant act with both hands and both feet. Afterwards there were so many cakes left that I went up through the cor- ridors with a huge platter of cakes in each hand, and gave one to each blesse I met. Some were without legs, arms, and lower jaws, and yet if they had one hand left they got a cake from me. My concert for the blind is coming along [ H5 ] You Who Can Help well and to-day I had a blind man whom Mrs. N----is interested in come and tune my piano; she hires a small boy to take him about. She has a one-legged man she is helping, and as soon as he can use his wooden leg well enough, she is going to hire him to take the blind one around. Sunday this blind one is coming to the concert. [ "6 ] Paris, January 23, 1917. In all my spare moments last week I was planning for my concert for the blind which I had Sunday afternoon. I had hoped to have a hundred of the blind, but one hospital did n't want to allow theirs to come, as the authorities do not like to have many seen at a time on account of the effect on the people at large, which is, of course, quite all right. Ten blind men in your house at one time seem many, but I was perfectly happy in having forty- seven blind here, and about a hundred people in all. It was really a wonderful experience, and I would have given a great deal if you could have looked in on our party, and could have seen the happiness which thirty dollars was giving. The first man arrived half an hour early. Of the forty-seven there were all kinds and descriptions, — African cavalry with their red fez, chasseurs, men in red and men in blue; many were without one arm, but all had both legs. One Moroccan about seven feet tall, with his head all bandaged up, and with hardly a square inch on his face which wasn't a big dent, made by frag- [ "7 ] You Who Can Help ments of shell, was beaming with happi- ness. And Miss P----, who brought him, told me the next morning that he had been looking forward to leaving the hospital and going to a little place outside of Paris, to learn a trade, but going back to the hospi- tal in the taxi from here, he said, " I don't believe I want to leave Paris, now, I did n't know there was a place where I could enjoy so much." And Mrs. L----, who brought one from Val de Grace, went to see him the next morning and he said, " Please tell madame for me that I feel thirty years younger. For the first time since I lost my eyes I felt that life was worth living. I did n't know I ever could enjoy anything again; I am a new man." It was satisfactory beyond words to see them here, and I hope you can realize the joy you gave with your money for my 11 fund." Four came in from the Ambulance. O---- brought two of them, and Mrs. H----two. One of these had an entirely new face from the eyes down and, although he looks curious, he does n't look de- formed; it is wonderful what surgery has been done in this war. [ n8 ] You Who Can Help The rugs had been taken up, all the fur- niture removed, and a hundred small chairs hired for the occasion. There was plenty of room, and the scanty furnishings of our apartment were for once an advantage. The men of course got the best seats, and everyone else stood at the rear of the dining-room or in the hall. In addition to the real opera singers, there was a quartet of British boy scouts, and a violinist who is now a private in the clerical part of the medical department, but who must have been a very well-known man before the war. I won't try to describe anything, except to say that everyone was fine and pleased the men immensely. The violinist seemed to us ignorant Americans about the finest we had ever heard, and even the musical people present gave him a big ovation and insisted on his playing again after the pro- gramme was finished. Most of the music was either classical or patriotic except that of the last performer, who was a little white-faced, ex-vaudeville artiste, with short hair and a wise old head on her young shoulders. She was singing at a cafe-concert in Belgium at the beginning of the war and lost clothes, job, and every- [ H9 ] You Who Can Help thing else. Her main idea was to sing and recite what the men liked. It was too slangy for us to get, but Miss Dagmar laughed and said, " The reputation of the house is gone now! " But it did no harm and made the afternoon end in a laugh from those poor fellows who have so little to laugh at now that their light has failed. Halfway through the programme we served a glass of vin ordinaire (which now costs twenty cents a quart!) and a bit of a cake to each soldier, — little cakes which were not messy and which the poor fellows could handle neatly. It was a privilege to ask them if they would have some, hear their polite reply, and see the pleased ex- pression come over their mutilated faces. Then it was another privilege to guide their fingers to the stem of the wineglass and place the cake in their other hand — if there was another hand. Several of them made a little ceremony of drinking the wine, and said, " A votre sante, Madame" or " A I'Amerique" as they raised their glasses. A few did n't want any at all, but asked for lemonade. When they were told that there was also tea, they said, " We are French, not English! " There are not words enough to tell you [ 120 ] You Who Can Help half of the pathos and tragedy crowded into our little apartment that afternoon or half the many ways in which we tried to make at least one day less dark to those men whose light has gone out. But I can- not pass over one couple who came in — a middle-aged man who had recently mar- ried a seventeen-year-old girl. She told us that her brother-in-law, of whom she was very fond, had died that morning and that she was broken-hearted, but that she had n't spoiled her husband's day by telling him about it yet because he had been look- ing forward to the concert ever since he had been invited and because it would have broken him all up not to come. Many thoughtless Americans here comment on the fact that they are doing so much while the French women apparently are not do- ing their share. I think that they forget that they have come over here expressly for relief work, that they are free and often are wealthy and that they have no griefs of their own. Many of the French women are bearing double or triple sor- rows like the seventeen-year-old wife of the blind man, and everyone of them has given someone to France. Moreover they have the practical problem of feeding and [ 121 ] You Who Can Help clothing their children which the American relief workers know nothing of. It is a many-sided question which no one is big enough to comprehend in all its aspects. When the programme was finished and the wonderful violinist had played a second time we again served wine and cake to the men and tea to the others. The men were at last allowed to smoke, which pleased them a lot, as the singers had requested that they refrain during the singing on ac- count of their fifty-thousand-dollar throats. Then began the best part of the after- noon. Those poor souls actually began to talk amongst themselves, to tell tales of the war, to describe how they were wounded, to tell about their hospitals, their nurses and their marraines and families, and to ask about their regiments and the luck of their comrades. I think that the warmth and the music and the welcome made them this way, for before the singing began they had hardly said a word. They lingered for at least half an hour and did n't seem to want to go then, but the people who had them in charge were naturally anxious to get them safely back- before dark. As each man left I bade him " Good- [ 122 ] You Who Can Help bye " and handed him a surprise bag which had come into the A. F. F. W. There was n't a man who did n't thank me politely and most sincerely for the bag, the good time, and the American sympathy behind it all. Mollie was very grown up and helpful and tactful. Her knowledge of French helped her understand what the men said and wanted. If you could have seen her you would have been very proud of her. [ 123 ] Paris, January 27, 1917- I must sit down and tell how much M----'s first eight dollars did to help those who were in most trying need. I received a letter from a Mrs. Butler who is a Frenchwoman, married to an Eng- lishman who has been killed. In this letter she said she was a nurse at a temporary dispensary where the wives and children of the men at the front could go and re- ceive medical and surgical attention free. You see all the hospitals which were hos- pitals before the war are filled with men, and naturally all the temporary ones are simply for military purposes. So the poor women and children had nowhere to go. Several French women opened this free dispensary in the " Pavilion Ledoyer," which is directly across the Champs Elysees from my " Shop," and like mine was a cafe before the war. The great present need seemed to be for towels and it was a pressing need. I inquired whether I could get some from the A. F. F. W., but could n't, for they were women and not French wounded. So I took a taxi and [ 124 ] You Who Can Help went to the Gallery Lafayette, and with eight dollars of my " fund" purchased five dozen small and poor towels, and then up I went with Marlborough to the " Poly- chinique Ledoyen." Mrs. Butler's gratitude was very real; she said, " There is n't a towel in the place." It sounded a little exaggerated, but we listened to her profuse gratitude. I told her that I had been able to get them with some money that had been sent me. She disappeared with the large package, in search of the wonderful doctor who would be so grateful. This doctor, she said, was considered remarkable, and she said how wonderful she thought it was for him to give up his practice and devote every min- ute to relief work, either at that place or in hospitals. Presently she came and announced that the doctor was ready to receive us in his office, and you can imagine our sensations as we walked into his office to find he was as black as the ace of spades! He is from Hayti, tall and really very handsome, im- maculate in his hospital garb, spoke Eng- lish perfectly, and had the manners and courtesy of a gentleman of royal birth. I asked all about the work he was doing, [ 125 1 You Who Can Help and told him I would try to help them out in getting supplies from time to time, for they are doing a tremendous work and hav- ing a pretty hard time to get things. He thanked me profusely for the gift of towels and said they never needed anything so badly. And shortly he took us over the place, and, as he opened the door into the operating-room, I could see that a young boy about Mollie's age was on the operat- ing table having his shoulder dressed. There were three or four nurses in attend- ance. The package of towels I had just brought was lying opened on a chair, and already several of them in use. We were not expected in there, but to see with our own eyes what we had taken put right into use, made us realize that there was no ex- aggeration in their gratitude, and that their need was beyond words. The doctor said that the soldiers had been appreciative of what had been done for their families; and often a man on permission would go to see the doctor and thank him for what he had done for his family. It was wonderful to be able to do this for them, and I thank my " fund " con- [ 126 ] You Who Can Help tributors from the bottom of my heart. I am spreading out as carefully as possible and trying to help the most needy with the money you all so generously sent me at Xmas time. And I am trying to do a little in some of the various things which are so appealing, as well as to give the soldiers who are well and still fighting a little joy. I appreciate more than I can tell you the money you all sent to me, for I am able to do so much more. I had to do what I could financially, then stop until the next month. Now, I have a real emergency fund! But not a day passes that something so appealing does not turn up. To-night Mollie came home filled with the story of a little refugee who came to her school to-day. The principal had taken her in, given her a bath and food, and a few warm things, and was going to keep her for the present. It is freezing cold and the child did n't have any hat or anything warm. The children were asked to bring some- thing for her to-morrow, if they had any- thing. So Mollie has done up a package with some underclothes, a pair of woolen gloves, and her brown velour hat. And she said, " Is n't it wonderful to actually see these people who need your things? " [ 127 ] You Who Can Help This past week I have had several let- ters from the families of the blind men who were here last Sunday, and their ap- preciation of the afternoon here was pa- thetic. That afternoon is really wonderful to look back upon. Our minds really are on nothing but the preparations which are being made for an early spring drive. I fear it is coming early, and I hate to think of the thousands who are at the front now, who will never come back. [ 128 ] Paris, January 31, 1917. To-day I have had a strenuous day. I worked until eleven and then went to the Gare du Nord with a couple of dollars in the form of four hundred cigarettes. It is a short hour's strenuous work giv- ing hundreds and hundreds of poor cold soldiers a final cup of coffee in Paris, from the canteen truck which goes right to the platform of the train. And when the coffee and bread have gone, then comes the fun of giving away the cigarettes, going from coach to coach. This morning, in the midst of handing to French, Belgium, Senegalese, and Colo- nials, and using my limited French, which at the train always seems extensive, for the time is so limited, a little fellow said, in plain English, " Thank you for your coffee. I like your coffee." This last remark I promptly followed up with many English remarks, but he understood nothing, so I turned on my limited French and he was filled with replies, among them, " That is all I know" (of course this in French). Before the train started I dashed down the [ 129 ] You Who Can Help platform hoping to see him again, and, sure enough, hanging out of the window he was, and he said in French, " I thought I might see you again." I gave him some cigarettes in the two hands he held out, saying, " These are from a friend in America," and as the train pulled out, he was back to his phrase in English, but this time it was, " Thank you for your cigarettes. I like your cigarettes." I love to go to the trains, although it is rather depressing. To-day there was n't time to do anything but get a hasty lunch in town before going to the Ambulance to pour tea. From the amount of tea and coffee I have poured to-day, I don't feel like seeing either for some time. Yet to go to the station and see hundreds and almost thousands off to the front, and turn around and go to a huge military hos- pital and see hundreds of human wrecks, makes the terribleness of this whole weigh upon you. Marlborough writes he is having a most interesting and instructive time at Fontaine- bleau, and with an open fire and burning wood he feels like a king. I am hoping he will bring a bundle of the wood back with him. If he does n't, the day E-----'s [ 130 ] You Who Can Help cases turn up at the Alcazar, I shall bring the cover home by hand to luncheon with me, build a fire, and have a real time. However, the cold seems to agree with us, for we all are in fine shape; but I feel that my style is cramped a bit, when I write, eat, and live in the petit salon, and when I go to bed put on everything but my hat and furs. I thought seriously of getting up and getting my muff the other night, my hands were so icy! To-day when the girls went on their daily walk in the Bois from school, they attempted to pick up the little tiny sticks to bring home, but Mollie said the gen- darme drove them off. To-night we are thrilled for we hear we can get the wood we ordered weeks ago by the last of this week. We shut the doors to-night in the petit salon and burned the two old Atlantic Monthlies you sent and found them quite hot stuff. It is the strangest sensation in the world not to be able to buy or get a stick of wood. We have coal for a few days. A thousand thanks to those who so gen- erously sent money for my relief work. Everybody is so good, and if I could only in some way give you any idea what a little [ I3i ] You Who Can Help cheer and personal help means to these poor souls, you would all feel repaid for the sacrifices you make in sending it. But I seem to get all the pleasure as well, for I have the pleasure of receiving the money and the keen joy of seeing all the pleasure it brings to them. [ 132 ] Paris, February 7, 1917. We are all well and shall try to keep so, and shall all stay on dry land. So do not worry one little bit about us if there are long spells without letters; simply know that they are written and that lack of trans- portation is the one reason why they will not arrive as usual. If there is anything we particularly want you to know we will cable. Last Sunday our military attache in London and some others lunched with us. After luncheon some people came to call, filled with the news that America had broken off diplomatic relations with Ger- many. Needless to say, it was thrilling and my luncheon guests deserted me for the Embassy. It is wonderful to see the American flag displayed with the French flag in many streets to-day. Just what all this will lead to no mortal can tell. I am not allowing myself to think of all the possibilities of war, although at times it seems pretty near. The latest economy is that all trams, the metro, etc., stop at ten o'clock at night, to [ 133 ] You Who Can Help save coal and electricity. This Tuesday and Wednesday were the first " no cake or pastry" days. On the fifteenth sugar tickets are issued. As Moll says, " What's the use of issuing tickets when you can't get any sugar anyway? " [ 134 ] Paris, February 9, 1917. To me this has been just like Christmas to-day, and much better, for what has come to-day for me and the poilus is better than any Christmas gift ever was. When I went to work, I was greeted by the good news that case 8136 with seven- teen army blankets had arrived for me. And before I left at noon case 8134 with seventeen more had arrived. Unfortu- nately, but perhaps you don't feel that way about it, there is a tremendous call for blankets in the hospitals at the front, and what I had planned, as I wrote Esther, to give them to Madame Courcille at the Gare du Nord, for more beds, — a blanket is a bed there, — does not seem so madly urgent as suffering hospitals to-night, but I am going to decide in the morning. I wanted to get my one single one off to a young boy in a German prison through his family. This I did, and then I called a taxi and brought one case home with me. After my lunch by myself, I opened the case, and with half of the cover I had [ 135 ] You Who Can Help an open fire in my petit salon, and purred; nothing ever was so wonderful! I know the case should have been used to re-pack in, but " by heck," whatever that is, when there has n't been a sliver of wood in this house for three weeks, and no signs of any, every nick of wood on your cases is going to be used for home consumption by the Churchill family. I had a French lesson at four-thirty so the rest of the cover was sacrificed to make this room comfortable for dinner and to write in this evening. The blankets are perfect, and I shall keep two in the house, fearing Marlbor- ough may have need of them. And to- night I sent Sophie to the Embassy with the pouch mail, and she brought home no letters, but her arms full of packages! Books there were, a package of four muf- flers and two wristers, which are perfect, and a package of a sweater and socks for Moll. Moll and I were thrilled. We have planned to send the sleeveless sweater and scarf to the filleul. A scarf, wristers, and socks to Corporal Paul Peretti, who is in the Somme. He is a friend of Marlborough's. When Marl- borough was in Corsica he took a picture [ 136 ] You Who Can Help of a dear old lady whose sons were all in the war, and it came out well, so he sent her one. It reached her when her son Paul was home on " permission," so he wrote a most appreciative letter of thanks. Here in Paris, at the " Salon des Armees," they are exhibiting everything, passed by a com- mittee, which show the soldier's art. This Paul Peretti made rings and napkin-rings, and on one he put a large M. C. monogram in honor of Marlborough. So of course we have been to see it, and we tried to buy it, but found he had asked to have it given to Marlborough after the exhibit closed. I have always intended to send him a package, but have n't, so now he will get the nice muffler, socks, and wristers. An- other muffler goes to a cute little Colonial whose picture I will send when I get his letter of thanks. The other scarf I shall save to send to the balloonist, M-----'s fil- leul. I am getting a little anxious about him for I should hear from him. I hope nothing has happened to him, just when he was beginning to have someone take care of him. And the pair of hospital socks I am going to wear on my own feet this night! So whoever knit those with the little red top and toe, please tell her that [ 137 ] You Who Can Help my appreciation is a hundredfold, and when I part with them, I shall feel that I am making a personal gift. You see what a wonderful day we have had, and crowned by an open fire! To- night I see in the papers that all big em- poriums are to close one day a week and all theaters are closed four days a week. The wash-lady has n't turned up for the clothes this week, and to-morrow being Saturday I guess she is not coming, — probably no coal and frozen water, poor thing. [ 138 ] Paris, February n, 1917. I took twenty dollars of my " fund " and sent some medical supplies to the Dis- pensary for women and children of the men at the front, which I wrote you about. I had had several letters from them, and had talked with one of the nurses, and their needs were pretty urgent, particularly with this cold weather and sickness, and some things were expensive for them to buy and hard to get. So I sent them some ninety per cent alcohol, which is hard to get and about two dollars a quart, ether, iodine, glycerine, vaseline, hypodermic syringes, and six good platine hypo-needles, aspirin, quinine, sulphate of soda, etc. I know that the gift was a needed one. The things were sent yesterday afternoon and if I hear from it in the morning, I will enclose the letter. The day I went there and took the towels I had bought with the money you sent, I knew I should n't be happy until I had done a little more for them to put them on their feet. Their work is so admirable, and without the glamor of working with the soldiers, yet [ 139 ] You Who Can Help being, indirectly, for their families it is the same. And all these children must grow up strong and husky if France is to have any future. It is still cold but with E-----'s case we have had a perfect day and toasted by the open fire, and there is still the bottom of the case and one side, and five or six more cases to come! Our outlook is of the best, and I feel like a multi-millionaire. [ HO ] Paris, February 12, 1917. Your box No. 8056 turned up to-day, with your note of December 1 inside. The letter was sent in to me from the receiving department, and the box opened but not touched. As there were many things in it, besides the box itself, that I wanted, I let it stay all day, until I left about five- thirty, and brought it home with me on a taxi. The things are perfect, and could not be nicer, and I shall take real pride in giving them where I see the need. I can't tell you how nice it was to get your letter enclosed, and it did make me feel that the box was very personally pre- pared. Although I am filled with ideas for all these things, it is best not to tell you what I am going to do until I do it. Then you can patch the letters together and have a complete history of your wonderful gifts. The first hot-water bottle, with its nice warm cover, is reposing at Moll's feet this minute! About two weeks ago hers broke after she was well tucked in bed. Another one is going to repose at my feet, so if your conscience bothers you, [ I4i ] You Who Can Help kindly charge up my account with two hot- water bottles, but we could n't resist them. They are scarce, very poor and expensive, so two beautiful bags and covers went to a couple of Americans, Mrs. M. Churchill and daughter, who send you no end of sin- cere gratitude, and many thanks for the comfort of many nights to come. Some day I will try and get you a picture of them taken with their gift to show you their appreciation. Four hot-water bags and two rubber sheets to the Leyoden Dispensary. Twenty blankets went to-day to Hospital Benevole, 163 ibis, Arcachon, Gironde, La Poupinere. It was a very urgent call, so I said I knew you would gladly meet it, and packed up twenty of your thirty-four which have ar- rived, and got them off to-night. Although I am only the " middle man," I can't tell you what it is to have something to give when the call from real suffering comes. I know I never can tell you what some of these hundreds of hospitals are like. I mean of course the temporary ones. They simply make the most and best with what they have, which many times is simply a big, dismal store-room. I went to one at Charenton Saturday afternoon, which was [ 142 ] You Who Can Help almost beyond words. I had received let- ters asking if in any way I could procure for them a sterilizer for their instruments and compresses; also instruments. So I decided to go there and see for myself what they needed, and in some way try to get through the clearing-house what they needed. After motoring through Vin- cennes and the Bois de Vincennes, I ar- rived at this small hospital; it had only fifty beds, in three dingy store-rooms; blesses in two, and the malades in the other. What they needed was soap and water, and I felt that anything in the way of ap- paratus was simply something more for them to care for and keep clean. And the poor things looked as if they needed cheer- ing up as much as anything, so I am going to take surprise bags and cigarettes down to them on Washington's birthday. But the whole place is rather typical of the poorer places. The sleeveless sweater I am going to send to Paul Peretti, Corporal 229th Regi- ment, 13th Company. So when I send you his letter of thanks you will know who knit the sweater, for there was just one in the shipment. The sweater by mail went to Moll's filleul. [ H3 ] Paris, February 22, 1917. To-day has been a wonderfully interest- ing day. I started out on " delivery " early this morning, first by carrying an enormous laurel wreath to the Washington monu- ment in Place d'lena. Our ambassador and other notables were there and there were speeches. Then some of us went in a motor car to four different hospitals in Charenton, where we personally gave the men sacs surprise, and told them that it was an American fete day. Hospital 2 on avenue de la Liberte is a fascinating-looking place in gray stone, on a hill, with a high gray wall all around it. Formerly it was a convent school. There were only about a hundred and eighty men there but most of them were grand blesses. They were getting along all right although it made your heart sick to see some of them. Hospitals 211 and 205 were both in- teresting, well run, and clean, and it was a pleasure to see the happiness the bags brought. Hospital 170 was the last one in Charenton; it was the one I wrote you [ H4 ] You Who Can Help about. The dirtiest place ever made, but I hope through the clearing-house to get them a sterilizer for their instruments, compresses, etc., and so kill a few of the germs which must be running riot there. Two of the men had been decorated there to-day, but there is something even more pathetic to see a Croix de Guerre pinned at the head of a man's bed, when he is lying there a physical wreck, than if there is nothing of the kind to make you realize more than you ordinarily do what he has sacrificed for France. After luncheon I went on a delivery to a big hospital of about four hundred beds on rue des Recollets, near the Gare de l'Est. Marlborough left this morning for the front; he will be out two weeks anyway. He has taken a sleeping-bag and all, and has gone out to live right with the artillery. It is a wonderful chance for him, and I am of course happy each time he gets a chance to do something worth while from a pro- fessional point of view. But this awful war has so many points of view, that I shall be relieved to get him home again. Albert Laurent, who wrote and thanked you for the scarf, is really pathetic. He is [ 145 1 You Who Can Help a boy of nineteen — my cook's nephew — and my other maid has taken him for her filleul. He has been all through the Somme, and his courage is beginning to break a little, but I hope when the weather is better he will cheer up a bit. I got a lot of things together for him when he went back, sent him to the cinema, with the maids, and tried to give him a little happiness. Before he left, I was glad to receive a box of shirts and towels; I promptly gave him one of the shirts, and it made him so happy, and an address in the pocket was a delight. Day before yesterday they said there was a package for me; I opened it and there was E-----'s accordion. Little did I think I should ever play her accordion in Paris! I promptly took it out of the box and made many bum notes on it, but it gave the Alcazar a little gayety. Some- one came dashing downstairs to say that she knew a man who was pining for an accordion — so I have sent it. The other day I went to an adorable little hospital on rue de Vaugirard where there are all " gassed " men. There are sixty-three there at present, and all are get- ting along so well, but great care from the ' [ 146 ] You Who Can Help cold air has to be taken, so they are pretty much shut in in their little wards. It is a little place run by the Sisters, with lots of small rooms accommodating eight or ten men on three floors. The men were all so happy and so nice and appreciative even of my French that I got rash with my cigarettes and they gave out before I got to the third floor. I am going again Tues- day to see them, and will start at the top! I took over some of my books and pic- tures to paste in, and it delighted them, and they told me to come again soon and bring some more. The Sisters asked me when I left if there was any way I could get handkerchiefs for them, for they were destitute. The A. F. F. W. was extremely low on handkerchiefs, so I took some of my " fund " and bought five dozen mili- tary French blue ones. On the cakeless and candyless days, of course, you feel as if you had to have some- thing sweet, so the other day I went to a grocery shop for a box of fancy crackers, thinking that they would answer the pur- pose. I found that not a cracker could they sell on cakeless days. A little jam on bread for tea fixed me finely. Monday the New York Herald was only [ 147 ] You Who Can Help a single sheet; this to save paper, and it is to be that way every Monday. We are getting along beautifully with light by being very, very careful. We find we can burn a light at night to write by as late as we want to, but of course there is never a light in the house excepting when you are right with it! You ask about our heat and light; I am thankful to say that the terribly cold weather is a thing of the past. The central heating plant in the apartment is still work- ing and now that it is not very cold, just rainy, that heat is enough. By enough, I mean that you can go to bed without really needing your muff. And with great effort on Clemence's part we can get a handful of coal every now and then for the range, so with this and our allowance of gas we get along all right for the cooking. [ 148 ] Paris, February 24, 1917. It is probably not necessary to tell you about the Hospital St. Nicholas, 66 rue Ernest Renan-Molineaux. This is where Doctor Barthe de Sandfort is doing his wonderful work with ambrine. The world knows the wonders which ambrine is doing for these horrible burns from liquid fire, and I had heard through a doctor that they were in need of many things which would make their work easier if they had funds. Early this morning I motored out and found the hospital very clean and comfort- able, but as it is simply a temporary hos- pital, and at one time a primary school, it was very simple and primitive compared to our modern ideas of a hospital. The doctor in charge of the service de Vambrine was most cordial, and appreciated my in- terest in wishing to see something of this almost miraculous work which is being done. Although it was perfectly logical from his point of view to start at the operating-room where these poor souls are received, and end at the ward where they are well and happy, it was a little strenu- C H9 ] You Who Can Help ous and things did not come very gradually from my point of view. The condition these poor fellows arrive in is indescribable; their appearance is far from human. As you know, ambrine is applied in the form of vapor, and after the first there is no more suffering. From the receiving-room I went into the operating- room where the treatment is given. 1 do not want to describe too vividly, but I can- not tell you the feeling it gave me to see what I did. There were men on the op- erating-table, perfectly conscious. It was hard to believe that they were not suffer- ing. One man had the most ghastly intes- tinal shell-burn to which they were apply- ing a second application. I wondered how he could live, and he was lying there, as calm and peaceful as though nothing had happened. Another man was sitting up on the operating-table, watching the treatment to his frozen feet. The foot had more than half dropped away, although there were three or four little so-called toes on each foot. The doctor said, " Pardon, un mo- ment" slipped on a pair of rubber gloves, took a little pair of scissors from the for- ceps of the nurse, who was apparently wait- [ 150 ] You Who Can Help ing for him, and snipped off all the little toes, while the man sat up gazing at what he once could call feet. The others I will not describe but I told you of these so that you could really know that after the first treatment there is absolutely no suffer- ing. I asked this doctor, as we came out into his office, what they were in need of, and he told me many things to make the place easier for their work. When I told him that I had a gift for them, he said it would be a pleasure for Doctor de Sandfort, the discoverer of am- brine, to receive the gift in person, and that he would go and get him. I found him one of the most fatherly Frenchmen in the world, and, having seen what he had dis- covered for humanity, I could hardly re- frain from greeting him in the true French fashion,—a kiss on one cheek and then on the other. He said that he had been work- ing on it for sixteen years, and although he did not know why all these terrible burns healed so quickly, and all without a scar, or a mark of any kind, they just did, and that was sufficient. He has given the formula to the French government, but, after the war, the world can have it. I told him of my pleasure in r 151 ] You Who Can Help meeting him and the debt of gratitude humanity owed him. I had the pleasure of giving him the money and he said, " Thank your friend for me from the bot- tom of my heart, as well as all the other Americans who have done so much to help my people." He said that he would like to have me see some special cases and their photo- graphs taken before treatment. One man, with his face pink and white like a baby's, had had all the skin burned from his face just one month, less two days, before and not one scar did he have. He said that he did not suffer a single thing after the first and that he loved to have it dressed each day. He took me to see another man, Fancon by name, whose picture I sent you; from the dates on the picture you will see what was accomplished in twenty days, and to-day his skin is as clear and perfect as though nothing had happened. Some time ago, I was happy to receive a gift of five dollars for my French soldiers. I have been tempted many times to part with it, but when Saturday last came, and I assisted in giving and arranging an Easter concert and supper for eighty-five men, the five dollars went a very long way. [ 152 ] -*;^-\ alarm *" The photograph in the upper left-hand corner was taken May 2, 1916; the one below it shows the same man, alter ambrine treat- ment. June 1, 1916. "He said that he did not sufiEer a single thing after the first and that he loved to have it dressed each day." The two middle photographs were taken June 21, and June 30, 1916, and the two at the right, September 21, and October 27 1916. You Who Can Help We arranged the concert and Easter party at the supper hour at Mme. Destray's canteen, where I go one night a week to serve supper, — a canteen in which I am very much interested. The place, which or- dinarily is rather forlorn and dark, in a little room off a courtyard, on rue Luxem- bourg, was gay with French and American flags, side by side, both standing for right and humanity. Thanks to each one who has sent money for my " fund," the ordinary canteen sup- per was turned into a real party, with French pastries and fruit. Of course they are all most grateful and appreciative of the soup and vegetable stew, which they have each night. But they are like chil- dren, when they have something unex- pected and appealing, — their pleasure is so sincere. The men who can get papers to allow them to have their meals at this little place are either men on eight days' permission, who are from the invaded country, or men discharged from the hos- pitals who are not quite able physically to go back to the front and yet who have no family or friends in Paris. Most of the supplies are donated by the market-women of Paris, who, like everyone else, are doing [ 153 ] You Who Can Help their share towards giving these men, who are sacrificing their lives, what comforts they can. There are always some leaving each day for the front, and the men who left Sunday carried with them happy memories. The woolen socks I received I have given, each pair personally, to the men, and I wish it were possible to tell about the circumstances of each soldier. I have given them all to men who are still fighting for France and civilization, and not to men who have a certain amount of comfort in hospitals or who are con- valescing. The men in the cold, wet, snowy trenches needed them the most. The types I reached varied from the poor poilu from the invaded territory, who has no one to give him anything, or any family who even know where he is, to a man with a title, who before the war possessed a beau- tiful chateau in Northern France but who now has his chateau only as a memory, be- cause everything in the world that he had has been taken by the Germans. He was mobilized as a chauffeur for a supply truck; he has experienced frightful ex- posure and is now threatened with tuber- culosis. When I was asked if I had any warm socks for him, it was a great pleas- [ 154 ] You Who Can Help ure to be able to answer yes. But my pleasure was as nothing to the comfort he received from the warm things he needed so much these last desperately cold days, as he drove his supply truck to the front. I wish I could tell about each man, for to me they are all so individual, but they were all alike in their gratitude to the good American women who had remembered them and believed in the principles for which they were fighting. [ 155 T Paris, March i, 1917. You are quite right when you imagine that we are stirred up about the U. S. A. I just don't dare to think ahead. France is so thrilled, and Bordeaux busy enter- taining the Orleans and Rochester men. To-night Clemence's cousin came in from the front on his permission. You see they are all told it is their last, for after a certain date the spring drive will be on, and there will be no permission for a long time. He is in the Belgian army. Poor soul, he has a wife and little girl but he has n't heard a word, or been able to send them a word, since the war began. Two years and a half, — is n't it awful? Yesterday I had such a perfect time over at my " gassed " hospital. I took over comfort bags which the A. F. F. W. gave me. There are about eighty there now so it was a regular Christmas in each ward! If you hear of anyone asking what to put in, — they adore harmonicas and puzzles, pipes and tobacco-pouches, and knives, aside from the strictly useful things. [ 156 ] You Who Can Help After they had taken out all their things and had a jolly time over them, I had to go around to each bed and let each one show me himself just what he got, make the ones who had harmonicas play and stick the little American flags up on the heads of the beds. Many times I had to tell them what they were for, and I even had to demonstrate what to do with chew- ing gum! I had a perfect afternoon and as much fun as they had, but there were four of them who were on the verge of tears, for they wanted a pipe so badly and no pipe was there in their bags. I was so disap- pointed for them, but I took some of your relief money and bought them each a pipe and a package of tobacco, wrote them a note and sent the maid over with them this morning. In just such ways as this I love to give them pleasure by such little things which mean so much happiness for them. When I have the generosity of my good family and friends to draw on, I can do so much more than I could with just my own pocket-book. [ 157 ] Paris, March 4, 1917. This looks very much like Inauguration Day to me, and it reminds me that four years ago we spent the day at our nice window and table at Harvey's. I was surprised and delighted to get a letter from Marlborough to-night, stampless and sector-postal-marked, as he said, " just like all your other poilus." He is having a wonderful experience, and is happy in mud up to his neck, with a gas-mask hanging on his belt, and a blue steel trench-helmet on his head, but I shall be more comfortable next week when it is an experience of the past. Last night, when I turned in around midnight, you could distinctly hear the cannon in the distance, but to-day I was told that that was very common when the wind was directly north, as it was last night. After one has seen results as I have, to hear cannonading even in the distance makes a pretty vivid mental picture. I have been thinking a lot to-day how I would love to drop in and have a good chat with you, and give you lots of good [ 158 ] You Who Can Help advice. Advice sounds rather flat, but since I have been here in Paris, and seen how conditions can change, a good long look into the future will be the wisest thing you all can do. When I came here every shop, market, and street vender had every- thing, and when people said, " I am buying this, that, and the other thing," it seemed too flat to me. I always laughed and said, " We will live on macaroni." And now I doubt if there is any to be had. I went into Ferrari's, the Italian shop down by the Opera, on my way home to-night, stood in line until I got discouraged, and then left. Potatoes are as scarce as hen's teeth; flour is getting scarce, and this morning's paper said that presently there would be bread cards. The bread is a light brown already, but to prevent waste of any kind they were to issue cards soon. I trust that the allowance is liberal. The sugar allow- ance amounts to three lumps per person per day, for tea, coffee, and cooking! So my advice to you is, having land, to shove the ground full of seeds, for all kinds of vegetables and eating things, you can. I know you will say, " Who is going to look after them?" Of course much will have to be more or less neglected, but, if [ 159 ] You Who Can Help war comes to America, the same things you will experience, without doubt, and it is no joke, but a long thought ahead will take you over difficulties. And if I were you I would raise all the vegetables I could, and can and preserve every vegetable and fruit I had that I could n't eat. If war is de- clared I advise your first purchase to be Mason jars, before they go sky-high with everything else. You all will probably have a good laugh over this, but as it comes from one who as you know is not an alarm- ist, or under ordinary circumstances very fore-handed, you may feel that it is worthy of consideration. You will have every- thing for awhile, and it will seem as if you were going to have everything, but sud- denly you will find the railroads used for troops, supplies, etc., and you eat what you can buy around you, but when everybody is doing it, there is an end to many things. But if you have things to eat in your garden and in your store-closet, you are that much more comfortable. [ 160 ] Paris, March 6, 1917. I sent things to-day to Hospital aux. 15, Clermont, Oise, from the contribution of the Andover Red Cross. It is a very in- teresting hospital, right behind the front. The infirmaire wrote that the hospital was just like a gulf, where the wounded flowed through by the thousands, and although the A. F. F. W. was able to send a big shipment, yours filled in where theirs ran short. I tried to tag each shirt with a little word, " Pour mon brave soldat" etc. and an address, so that some day you may hear from it. The infirmaire wrote that they were so near the firing line that they could burn nothing but candles, so that writing was almost out of the question. I had a letter from Marlborough this morning, saying he was living in a dugout and was very thankful for the six feet of railroad iron, sandbags, etc., which were over him. He said that at midnight the night before his little hole in the hillside shook like a pasteboard house and there was a horrible crash right overhead. He thought of course that Hindenburg was [ 161 ] You Who Can Help after him, but discovered they were French guns protecting their infantry. He is hav- ing a wonderful time and one every artil- leryman would give a lot to have, and I am so happy for him, but it makes me so nervous to sit here and write, hearing the sound of the guns in the distance and know- ing that he is out there somewhere. I received a long and most cordial letter from Dr. Casseus, the Haytian doctor at the Leyoden Dispensary; he was most ap- preciative of all I had done for him by making his work easier and he said he was having an interesting operation on a tumor at half past two to-day and would be hon- ored if I would and could accept his offer and assist at the operation. He assured me the patient would be completely ether- ized and the operation would not be very horrible. That without exception is the worst in- vitation I have ever received. I hastily wrote him a profuse note expressing my appreciation of his willingness to have me see him operate, but that I must decline as those things unfortunately affected me rather unpleasantly. If giving ether as a gift calls forth these invitations, I will never give another can! As one of the [ 162 ] You Who Can Help girls at work said, " How could one ever return an invitation like that! " To-morrow I am investigating a hospi- tal where I understand there are endless amputation cases and not half enough crutches, and if it proves to be so, I will go and buy some, thanks to you. I feel rather selfish having relief money in my hands so long, but I try to do the most with it. Anybody can give money here and there and it is naturally needed everywhere, but I wait until a particularly needy case is brought to me. Miss Dagmar told me to-day that she had been to one of the blind hospitals and they were still talking about the blind con- cert your money gave and said they never could forget how good the cakes and wine were. Months afterwards it is delightful to hear these things which assure you that your money was spent in the right direction. It is very touching to me to have so many of your friends in Andover willing to have me use my judgment in placing their generous gifts. Thank them all for me a thousand times; I hope that they may never see their country suffering as poor France is. [ 163 ] Paris, March 14, 1917. Marlborough came back at midnight Saturday, looking quite like the magazine picture of the poilu, with his bag, bedding- roll, trench crooked stick, and all the mud he could bring out of Champagne. He had a wonderful trip, was present at, and experienced, his first real fight. The bat- tery he was with fired eighteen hundred rounds in one day, and the captain of the battery was wounded by a fragment of shell going through the calf of his leg. The army corps he was with fired thirty thousand rounds one day, so you see it was not a perfectly quiet day! Well, the grippe I thought I was going to have Monday did n't arrive, but I did stay away from all work, — the first day in just six months I had missed at the A. F. F. W. You are so wonderful to continue to get money for me, and if people ever have any suggestions as to type of relief work they want it used for, do tell me, for as I do all that kind of relief work per- sonally, and apart from funds or red tape, [ 164 ] You Who Can Help I can place it anywhere. But before I spend any of the precious money you have collected, I go personally and see for my- self, and then, if I can't get the needed things through the A. F. F. W. or clearing- house, I do things myself. The other day I wrote to you that I was getting disturbed about the lack of crutches in a little hospital, but I have been able to beg these, without buying them, which is a great relief. So my little hospital gets crutches, and I will have money for the next emergency. [ 165 ] Paris, March 16, 1917. You probably read of our second Zeppe- lin alarm. I was enjoying a perfectly good night's sleep, when about four o'clock " bedlam " was let loose, the fire-engines, buglers, and, for the first time, sirens all over the city, as well. There was no ques- tion what it was; it was those Zeppelins again! Fortunately Mollie did not wake up. There was nothing to do but to close any steel shutters which were not closed, and wait for a bomb on the head! The air patrol got up very quickly, and over- head aeroplanes were so thick that they sounded like great flocks of ducks. No guns were fired in Paris, and about six o'clock the " danger past" signal was given. We were all happy to hear in the morn- ing that they had brought down one of the Zeppelins in Compiegne. I did n't have quite as many palpitations as I had the first time, but undergoing an air raid would never be a favorite pastime with me. Our days of peace with Germany seem [ 166 ] You Who Can Help numbered and it really looks as if war were inevitable now. To-morrow Marlborough goes to an ex- perimenting place, and, with a gas mask on, experiences all the different kinds of gas attacks, as well as learning the differ- ent kinds of masks. It is a most unpleas- ant thought, but an instructive experience. [ 167 ] Paris, March 30, 1917- A week ago the news of the German retreat filled our hearts with joy, which grew each day, as we read of more vil- lages evacuated. This joy was turned to horror on Sunday, when Mme. Carrel came in from Compiegne and told us of conditions in the evacuated territory.^ She was in her hospital at Compiegne when the news of the German retreat from Noyon reached her. At once she ordered out her ambulance and filled it with what supplies she had, and started, and was in Noyon a little more than twenty-four hours after the last German had moved out. Most of the houses she found destroyed, and all the furniture had either been taken away or made useless. There was not one pane of glass in the town or a stitch of clothing or household utensil left of any kind. In the city of seven thousand inhabitants she found over twelve thousand, as they had crowded in from the surrounding vil- lages. Those who were in cellars gradu- ally came out and told tales of horror too [ 168 ] Mme. Carrel "Mme. Carrel came in from Compiegne, and told us of condi- tions in the evacuated territory." You Who Can Help terrible to relate. Every girl between the ages of fourteen and thirty had been car- ried away by the Germans, and the younger women left are all about to become mothers of Boche babies. In the cellars many have died, and the mortality among the children has been terrific. Those who died were kept among the living for five days before they were allowed to be buried. In a little room in an orphan asylum, children were found in a condition that can scarcely be imagined. They had not been allowed to go out or wash, and had slept in their clothes, without mattresses, pil- lows, or coverings, since last December. The French civil population had not had any meat of any kind for seventeen months, and had had nothing but black bread and rice to eat. The French wounded in the hospitals had not been cared for, and they were skin and bones, with their open, in- fected wounds filled with vermin. The joy of seeing the men in blue was too pathetic for words. Most of them had no idea that they would not see their sol- diers in the famed red trousers, and when the French finally did come in, the people did not know them at first. These conditions are only some of what [ 169 ] You Who Can Help she found, but they are enough to make you realize the necessity of immediate action. I gave the hundred dollars the Boston Farmington Society sent me to the A. F. F. W. fund, for I knew they were to take immediate action, and, in twenty- four hours, four camions which had been requisitioned, started with food and cloth- ing. It was the first relief to leave Paris for the evacuated district. [ 170 ] Paris, April 2, 1917- The other morning I was out on " de- livery," and when I came back to the Al- cazar I was told that Marcel, a poor blind man who was here at your concert, had been to see me. It seems that he has been quite ill all winter, and they had been able to have him transferred to a hospital in Nice, where he could get out more, the weather being so much better there. He told the girl who did see him and talk with him that he did n't want to go away with- out seeing me, and telling me that if it had n't been for the new grasp he got on himself and life, he never would have wanted to live through his illness this win- ter. But the old joy and pleasure of being alive had come back to him with such force, the afternoon he was here at your concert, he had thought of nothing else all the time he was ill. And he wanted to tell me this before he went away! To-day I took one hundred blankets to the Gare du Nord to the canteen for the women and children who are coming in from the evacuated territory. There were [ 17' ] You Who Can Help only about fifty there this morning, mostly women and children but a few very old men. They were pathetic. They had not heard anything from their families or friends since the war began. But they were cheerful in that they always said, " I don't know where my husband is, for I have n't heard of him since the war began, but I know he is the trenches fighting for France." They never said or intimated that he might have been killed. They are a wonderful people and an example to the world in hopefulness, courage, and cheer- fulness. I was so glad to see the little children looking so well and almost fat, and the women were in much better condition than I imagined, but of course their faces showed what they had been through. At the canteen they are fed, and given a place to lay their heads at night, and if they have friends whom they can find or any- one who will promise to look after them, they can go to them. Otherwise the Gov- ernment sends them to Brittany, and they are boarded by the Government in the poor families there. The Govern- ment has to care for them, but by this arrangement the poor in Brittany are [ 172 ] You Who Can Help helped as well, and it seems an excellent arrangement. Yesterday morning, it being Mollie's vacation, I took her to the Gare du Nord to see a train off, and she loved it. I served the coffee and she gave them sandwiches, and then we both gave them cigarettes. To-night I took over two hundred more cigarettes to Mme. Destray's canteen, where I go to serve supper Tuesday nights. There were about sixty-five there, and among them I found a nice little Eng- lishman in the Foreign Legion. He had been in Paris four months, most of the time in a hospital recovering from wounds. He came up to me after supper to talk, and to shake hands and say good-bye, for he was leaving for the front to-morrow. A poor little French Colonial came to me, and wanted to know if I could get him some shoes and socks before he went back to the front on Friday. I am going to send him to a place where they will give him shoes, and he is coming to the Alcazar to-morrow morning to receive two pairs of your socks and a knitted scarf. He was just like a child when I told him I would give him these things, he was so happy. All warm things are still a blessing here, [ 173 ] You Who Can Help for it is still cold, and each day for a week it has snowed hard some time during the day, and here it is April! To-day I have been buying clothing for the A. F. F. W. to be sent to the evacuated country. I went out with five thousand francs and purchased one hundred women's dresses, shawls, children's dresses, under- clothes, boys' suits, towels, handkerchiefs, hair-pins, etc. [ 174 ] Paris, April 9, 1917. France is jubilant over her new Ally. The good old Stars and Stripes are all over the place and you have no idea how good it looks. Marlborough is working day and night. Last night, although we went to the same dinner, he arrived after I did, and left for the office the minute dinner was over, and worked until after midnight. Just what or where he will do or be we have no more idea than you have. I feel perfectly bewildered but shall probably come out of my fog one of these days. I just keep on at my work, and try not to worry about all the things that might happen. Naturally we are all wondering what America is going to do, — whether she will send any troops over here. Specu- lating about it does n't help a bit; the only thing to do is to wait and see. Moll is still having vacation, and having a beautiful time with an engagement every day. This afternoon she is playing tennis at the St. Didier Club, with tea at the [ 175 ] You Who Can Help France and Choisel Hotel afterwards. I call her some sport, but you have no idea what a joy and relief it is to have someone about who is just having a good time. [ 176 ] Paris, April 13, 1917. I can't tell you how sorry I was that I could n't write a letter in time to get off in the mail to-day, but I simply did n't have a chance to sit down and write. My work has been changed a bit, as the A. F. F. W. are starting relief of the evacuated dis- tricts, on rather a large scale, and I have been made purchaser or buyer, whichever you want to call it, — I have forgotten what it is called on paper. Although it is not quite like being buyer for Paquin's it is no child's play. There is nothing that an infant, child, man, or woman wears or has to use that I do not have to purchase, — and by the hun- dreds. I have to buy them all in French, and aside from the language, the French have no idea of hustle and business methods. It takes me hours to get the proper receipts, etc., to give to the treasurer. They have turned over one section in the Alcazar to me, and I have to arrange a shop complete there, so that they can work from there filling demands, as they [ 177 ] You Who Can Help come in. At the same time we have opened a " branch store," or vestiaire, at the Gare du Nord, where the refugees are fitted out as they come in on the trains. As I had all the buying, planning what should be bought, etc., and opening of that place, I have been nearly crazy. Many cases of old clothing have been received for that work, and before ten in the morning when that vestiaire is opened, I have had to go down there and take an inventory of all the articles, and see what sizes of things are getting low. From there I go to to my Alcazar store and do all the routine paper work, and attend to the needs there; then off buying all day, and, when I finish, back to the Alcazar to put purchases of the day in place there, get things for the Gare du Nord listed, and put in big hampers to be taken the next morning. As a result I have n't had one minute, but when I get it on its feet it will not be so hectic. The vestiaire at the Gare is wonderfully interesting; yesterday when I was working there alone — it is in a little room in the cellar, but with a nice electric light — the gendarme came in and said a family of seven had arrived from Rheims. [ 178 ] You Who Can Help As they were to be sent by train to Brit- tany before the hour for the vestiaire to open, could I fit them out? So from grandmother to a one-month baby, I fitted them out with things they needed. As you know Rheims is being heavily bombarded, and they left without one thing excepting what they had on their backs. Their tales were hideous of the terrific bombardment of the city, every- thing falling and in flames, and people es- caping with their lives and nothing more. One man, and a dear, said he and his family had been taken by the French sol- diers to live in their abri for the past three days, and when word came that all civilians must leave, he told of dashing with his family of seven from one street to another, and from one apparent shelter to another, wondering if all could be saved from the shot and shell of the terrific bom- bardment which was going on. They all got out safely, but they looked pretty cold and forlorn as they sat lined up on a bench in that dark cellar room, waiting for me to fit them out in turn. But they seemed to me more dazed than discouraged. One man you would have adored, — a man of about sixty, I should say, with his [ 179 1 You Who Can Help well-cared-for trowel in his hand, beaming, — for he was a gardener by trade, — be- cause he had saved his pet trowel, which he hoped to use when he got to Brittany, where the Government were sending him. Some of my " fund " purchased a complete corduroy suit for him. His comfort and happiness were complete; it will be a suit he can wear the rest of his life, and do all the gardening he wants to in. He was in desperate need of it, and I was so happy to think that I had the money which I could use to start him in life again, at least warm and comfortable. The dear old thing sat there in the canteen while I went up town and bought the suit and a flannel shirt, and brought them back to him. However such little things on the side are very time-consuming, and days simply fly by, with more things piling up to do all the time. Those peaceful days in Oklahoma seem a thousand years ago, and I am afraid it will be many years before we know the fun and peace of those army post days. Now I can only be thankful that Marlborough is still here in Paris with me. Since war has been declared he has left the house about seven in the morning, and returns [ 180 ] You Who Can Help about midnight or after. But occasionally I have luncheon with him, when we talk over things that are happening. I feel as if I had written very little of our ideas and plans since war was declared. But our ideas are not worth anything to anyone else and the little we know about things in general is nothing we can write about. Yet you may be sure that, if you hear nothing, we are simply sitting in Paris, busy and well; we shall keep you in- formed if any change comes for us. There are so many possibilities I do not dare to think of one. If this letter is a little dull it is because I have overdone eating pastries and cakes; this is to be the last day the law allows either to be made in Paris, so I have eaten for months to come! Next week one meatless day starts, and after May first no meat on Thursday and Friday. But all these things are no real hardship; the trying effect is that it makes crackers, etc., hard to buy and frightfully expensive. And meatless days will put vegetables and eggs up and, of course, fish, if there is such a thing as its getting any higher. If I had to do all the marketing I should [ 181 ] You Who Can Help probably lose my mind; as it is Clemence has all that trouble and gets what she can, and we are grateful for whatever she gets, and everything she cooks always tastes delicious, so why worry about things we can't have? There is always the same answer, " C'est la guerre." However, we love to sit and think of all the things we are going to have when we get back to America. Moll still has an ice-cream soda uppermost in her mind, and now she thinks that when she does go home she will ask someone to bring one to*the boat for her! Marlborough has decided not to eat any- thing after landing until he gets to The Maples, and has a breakfast of tripe and baked potatoes, and both without any limit as to quantity, while I am prepared to founder on hot rolls! It is still cold here, but for a day or two has n't snowed, but it is always busy raining. We are all very well, and the house most comfortable, for the central heating is still going on. Mollie is back in school, using all her spare time in playing tennis at the St. Didier Club, and is tennis mad. [ 182 ] Paris, April 22, 1917. I have been almost over my depth in work the past week, and have had to give up everything else, for I have been " on the job " from nine o'clock until six, and often it has been seven before I have left the Alcazar. Organizing, buying, and ar- ranging two stock-rooms, one at the Al- cazar and one at the Gare du Nord, has taken every bit of my gray matter! The responsibility of having all the money as well as the work turned over to me, to make good or to fail, has been no trifle. I am given a free hand, with no one to consult on the subject of buying or deciding as to needs, which, although probably easier in the end is, at first a tremendous responsibility. Now that I have both " stores " running, I feel sure that there can be no serious hitches. The Gare du Nord is cared for by two girls each day, and I simply have the buy- ing, and the daily task of keeping that place stocked, with the records to keep of what I have sent there. I have my desk and " department store " on the outside [ 183 ] You Who Can Help gallery of the Alcazar, next to the Am- bassadeurs. I am quite proud of it, and if there is ever a pleasant day I will take a picture of it. Here I reign alone, inter- view merchants, and keep my records and my stock. And I have done everything so far myself, bought the goods, made and arranged my store out of packing-boxes, and have almost reached the point of sit- ting down, putting my heels on my desk and admiring it. I have the Boston camion at my dis- posal, with nice Miss D-----as chauffeur, so I do not have to dash around Paris stores and commission houses on foot. This is quite a change from my previous work for the A. F. F. W., for this carries a big money responsibility, and is not plain physical labor. I like it a lot however, and when it gets warmer it will be a joy being out all the time. At present I wear sweaters, gloves, etc., to keep warm, — I mean partially warm; I have forgotten what it is to be really warm. So although it has been a long day, and I know I have to be at the Alcazar at eight- thirty in the morning, I do not feel tired in the least. Consequently you can see that you must not waste any sympathy on me. [ 184 ] You Who Can Help Work like everything else is a habit, and it is just as easy now to work all day as it used to be to dance all night. However, what I should like is peace, and a few nights of dancing and frivolity, but things do not look as if I should have it in a hurry. C 185 ] Paris, April 29, 1917. I think I last wrote on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon about four o'clock it was sprung on me that I was to leave Thursday morning at dawn, by camion, for Compiegne, the camion to be filled with supplies to be sent on to evacuated vil- lages. I asked for the list of articles they wished taken and was told that that was for me to do, to make a list, as well as to purchase everything. As I did n't wish to deplete my store at the Alcazar, I hopped into the motor I have at my disposal and made a tour of the wholesale houses, etc. As everything closes at six o'clock my time was short. Wednesday I bought all the things, packed them in sacks, and, when I finished about seven that night, everybody had left, and Dorothy A-----and I had to load the camion/ It was so almost impossible to do that it was killingly funny, and we laughed ourselves almost sick over it. But we man- aged to get everything on, — nine big sacks of clothing we could barely move, two crates of macaroni, two big wooden boxes [ 186 ] You Who Can Help of bouillon cubes sent from America, and two big basket crates of lemons. And we had clothing complete for sixty women, sixty girls, forty boys, twenty-five men, and a dozen babies. We left the Place de la Concorde at eight o'clock. I had on a blue flannel shirt just like a poilu, sweater, suit, and Marl- borough's polo coat, so you can see it is not very springlike yet. All our red-tape papers were made out to take a certain route, and the sentries along the way, who examined the papers, saw to it that we took no other. We went up through Chantilly, which is a heavenly spot; you probably went to the races there! All I did was to go through on a camion! Then we went through Senlis, which the Germans had for eight days early in the war. Some fighting took place there, and some of the streets are nothing but ruins. We arrived at Compiegne about noon. At two o'clock we went to Madame Carrel's hospital, which in other days was " Hotel du Rond Royal." It is delightful, and de- lightfully situated, and Madame Carrel is charming. I never saw anyone so filled with energy; you feel that she could do anything. She took us all over the hos- [ 187 ] You Who Can Help pital, where we dispensed cigarettes. We had thirty-five comfort bags which we gave in the wards where she considered they were suffering most. One man she found in a hospital when she first went into Noyon, and his condition was almost unbelievable. The combination of his wounds, loss of blood, lack of care, and lack of nourishment is too dreadful. We left our load with Madame Carrel to be distributed by her in the evacuated villages the next day. We started back at half-past four and were in Paris before eight o'clock. Three more cases from the Andover Red Cross were at the Alcazar on my re- turn; it is fine to have all these supplies now coming in, for now the offensive is started the wounded are piling in again. It is all too terrible! [ 188 ] Paris, May 6, 1917. I bless the Andover Red Cross for the three cases I unpacked to-day, with all the nice pajamas, pillows, fracture pillows, etc., and to have this personal supply just as the wounded are pouring into Paris again is wonderful. Of course the French are going forward, but not without frightful losses. The English are doing wonder- fully well, and although their losses may be as great, their wounded do not come this way. This work is fascinating beyond words, and you can do so much that the horrors are not depressing, where they would be if you had to sit by and see and do nothing but think about them. This past week I had a pathetic letter from Hospital 38, Poissy (Seine et Oise) asking for chaise-longues, so that they could get their convalescents out in the garden these sunny days; the men begged to be taken out, and yet were not able to sit up. So I took some of my " fund " money, and the chairs will be sent out on Tuesday. [ 189 ] Paris, May 15, 1917. Each day I fear that I shall hear some- thing has come up to cause Marlborough to leave Paris for " Somewhere in France "; but I have decided that there is enough anxiety in uncertainties without borrowing trouble. And the wonderful Frenchwomen are a lesson to the world. Do not worry one bit about my over- doing. I am very fit, and the more you do the more you want to do, and you get absolutely absorbed. But work is one's salvation. To-day, for instance, I worked from nine-thirty until six, with about an hour and a half out for luncheon, which I had with Marlborough. At six I went to my canteen and served supper to sixty-six men, came home and had dinner with Mollie at eight, and all the evening I have been working over my shipping lists of things which have to go out to-morrow morning at eight-thirty to Noyon. As usual Marlborough is at the office, but as it is about midnight he will be in shortly. [ 190 ] Paris, May 21, 1917. We were delighted and so happy to get letters from you all this week, and I wish I could tell you what a joy letters are; I read them over and over, whenever I have a little spare time. Another case from Andover Red Cross, with the cut-out pictures, scrap-books, pa- jamas, etc., arrived to-day, and I was delighted. I have just promised Mme. Lyeoty, wife of the general, many supplies for one of the Hopitals des Invalides. where all the paralyzed patients are. They are in need of everything, and I knew the things from Andover would be a joy to them. Everything you have sent has been perfect, and could n't have been better. Do not worry about my needing a vaca- tion; I wouldn't know what to do with one if I saw it. One works from force of habit here, and there is so much to be done, you do not become worn out trying to see it finished; that is impossible, so you just keep at it steadily. I try not to get too tired, for that is stupid; it is not up to any of us to ruin our [ 191 ] You Who Can Help health, to say nothing of our dispositions. If you are tired and nervous you are hardly a person to bring cheer to the suffering and forlorn. Of course I get interested and often do more than is wise for one's health, but I never mean to, for there is too much ahead to be faced with anything but the best of health. Paris is lovely now, with all the shrubs in flower, and all the trees wonderful, and the weather just comfortable. And I have every inch of every box E----- has sent stored here in the house, so when the cold days come we shall have more than our imaginations to keep us warm. I am particularly happy in having been told yesterday to go and get all my papers to be sent up to Noyon. I am naturally delighted; the chance is worth all the hard work I have put in on refugee relief. I expect to be back the next day, but this is the real chance I have been longing for. [ 192 ] Paris, June i, 1917. I brought this paper to work with me this morning, planning to take the noon hour to write to you, rather than bother with lunch. But Marlborough appeared and would n't allow it, so I have had a nice luncheon with him, and have but a few minutes before everybody returns to work. I have so much to write about it is tan- talizing, but I won't spoil my trip by giving you a poor idea of it. I will simply say that I was out at the front three days, and never in my life did I even ever dream I should be allowed such privileges. I have been four kilometers from St. Quentin, where shells were bursting, with a geyser of dirt thrown into the air. And I was told by many French officers that I could count the women on less than one hand who have ever had that chance. To-day forty-five thousand Germans hold St. Quen- tin ! I was so near I felt I could all but see the color of their eyes! It was beyond any words! I will write you about it more fully soon. But in a general way I will tell you the [ 193 ] You Who Can Help places I went to, so you can see on the map: Compiegne, Noyon, Tracy le Val, Tracy le Mont, Vic-sur-Aisne, Soissons (here the bombarding cracked louder than any Fort Sill target practice!), Chateau le Coucy (wonderful), Epagny, Nouvron, Bleran- court, Cuts, Chauny (terrible), Bois-de- l'Abbe (Eitel Friedrich Tower), Seran- court, Ham, Guiscard; my nearest spot to St. Quentin was Roupy. This will give you work enough to find on a map until my next letter arrives telling about it. I have been in French trenches and in evacuated German trenches, where I was tempted to bring home mahogany tables, gilt frames, etc., but contented myself with a few military souvenirs. Marlborough and Mollie got along per- fectly during my trip to the front, and I was fortunate in being able to send Marl- borough a message through Army H. Q. at Compiegne, that I had a wonderful chance to be out three days, and not to ex- pect me in until Sunday night, when I turned up about twelve. Last night was a perfect Gare du Nord party. There were three hundred poilus, and about twelve Marlborough came for me, and they all were so excited. The [ 194 ] Ruins of the "AIairie" at Chalny You Who Can Help Frenchman running it said many compli- mentary words, and the piano struck up the national air( ?) Yankee Doodle! And the men all said, " Vive I'Amerique " and " Mon Capitaine." When I came in Sunday I was thrilled and too happy for words to find E----'s wonderful box of candy, as fresh as it was the day it was made, and the five-pound box of sugar. I have never seen so much sugar! [ 195 ] June 3, 1917- I can never do justice to the wonderful experience I have had. As you know since the Germans began evacuating some of the French towns a few weeks ago, I have been busy day and night planning and executing the relief work which the A. F. F. W. were able to do, with money sent especially for that purpose. It was finally decided that we could do more direct work by establishing a base at Noyon. So I packed up the wonderful " department store " I had arranged at the Alcazar, and everything was taken to Noyon. Two days after the big trucks with the cases left, Dr. Eleanor Kilham, Miss Brent, and Dorothy Arnold (chauf- feur) planned to go to Noyon to stay, doing the work from there. As this was my department of work I was fortunate in being allowed to take the trip with them, with Ruth Casparis, head of the motor service, to drive me and bring me back. I was as delighted as a child over her first party at the prospect of going. The afternoon before I left Colonel and [ 196 ] You Who Can Help Mrs. Collardet had tea with us, and I told them of the wonderful trip before me. Colonel Collardet was leaving the next day for America, having been made assistant military attache to Washington; until now he has been chief-of-staff of the-----army. He promptly said, " You are going up into my country; I will give you a little note to Colonel Destekeer, the present chief-of- staff, with headquarters at Vic-sur-Aisne; do present it, for I know he will do all he can for you." Fortunately I had Vic-sur- Aisne on my pass, so I treasured up the little note. At eight o'clock Friday morning we started in two cars, the camion and the Buick. It was a glorious morning and our spirits were high. We motored to Com- piegne through Chantilly and Senlis, and Chantilly was just as enchanting as it was when I motored through a few weeks ago, only the forests were all carpeted with lilies-of-the-valley. Our road to Noyon led through Bailly, and before we reached that place we were in the midst of everything that pertained to war. The world seemed nothing but trenches and barbed wire, and wonderful abri, [ 197 ] You Who Can Help and miles of little narrow-gauged railroad for ammunition transportation. Here we were in lines the Germans held for two years and a half and had left but a few weeks ago. And how comfortable they had made themselves! My inclination was to go into every trench and abri, but I had to satisfy myself with a few, and we were warned to be very careful in the German trenches, for they have filled them full of traps, — that is if you picked up some- thing, or tripped over a wire, it might start things, and the whole trench would blow up. There have been some horrible acci- dents of this kind. In the woods I went into one wonderful abri, with a beautiful carved lion over the door, a wonderful half of a round mahog- any table, big chairs, and big gilt frames minus the glass. I tried to find this same abri the next day when Miss Casparis and I were alone, for I wanted to bring home the table, but we could not locate it. We passed one German cemetery, well laid out, the stonesbeautifully carved; many graves bore date of but a few weeks ago. Bailly and every small town are just wrecks, — every building down, and not one sign of life. [ 198 ] "Here we were in lines the Germans held for two years and a half and had left but a few weeks ago" You Who Can Help We arrived in Noyon about two o'clock, and in this large place I should say one- fourth of the buildings are standing; when I say standing, I do not mean with roofs on and window-glass, but the walls stand- ing. In the Place de la Ville, where the Mairie (town hall) stands, most of the buildings are standing. And over the door of the Mairie " Old Glory " was flying. A store in this Place is what the French gov- ernment has turned over for our ware- house. We deposited our things there, and some went to find a place to leave the cars, while others went for permits to live in the town. I went to find a woman to clean and cook for them, for they planned to live over the store. I wandered down one street, and into what was at one time a cafe, and found a woman trying to start it up again. I sat down and talked with her, and asked her if she knew of anyone who could help these Americans; she seemed to think there was no one. I asked her if she had a stove, and whether, if they brought her the food, she would cook it there for them. Not in a discouraged way at all, but only curious, she said, " What could I cook? " I was very prompt with my answer, " Vege- [ 199 1 You Who Can Help tables." " There are n't any vegetables," she said. I was not stupid enough to think she could find meat, so I said, " Eggs, then." " Oh! There are no hens here." So at once the question of having a cook or a stove seemed solved, — both were superfluous. I wandered farther and found a woman about to open the hotel. The hotel had not all its roof on, and the furniture had all been removed by the Germans, but she was sure if the Americans could bring their furniture and linen she could make them comfortable. It looked to me like their making themselves comfortable. Stores with canned things were opening up, and with a can-opener she was going to be able to give them something to eat. But she could not get any bread for them until they had their bread cards, so she could not be ready for them until the following day. The sadness and terribleness of Noyon was relieved by these humorous little touches. How can these poor people begin to live again, with all their sorrows and privations in these masses of ruins? We all motored back to Compiegne for the night, going back by Tracy le Val and Carleport. Such desolation! The villages [ 200 ] You Who Can Help stand out like ghosts, and there is so much destruction nothing seems real. After a good night's sleep, we started out about nine in the morning for Noyon again, Miss Casparis and I helped them straighten out things and left about noon. Then we went by ourselves to Vic-sur-Aisne to find the headquarters of the-----army, and pre- sent my note from Colonel Collardet. The road from Noyon to Vic-sur-Aisne by Carleport is over a terrible stretch of land by way of desolation. Every village is practically razed to the ground, and only occasionally is there any village to be seen. The whole world seems a maze of trenches and barbed wire, the trees just trunks, which stand shattered. There is no vege- tation; it all looks like a desert of deso- lation. Yet here at one point the German and French trenches were but about forty-five yards apart for two years. What tales of horror that forty-five yards of " No Man's Land " could tell! The whole place is a sea of barbed wire; one could not believe there was so much wire in the world. We stopped on this road and went into many of the trenches, where I couldn't resist picking up a few little souvenirs. I could [ 201 ] You Who Can Help not but think of the souvenir hunters and Cook's tourists in years to come, and how a few things which were real would seem then. Yet with everything there and tons of everything, souvenirs did not seem very precious. We found this stretch of road so crowded with interest it was hard to press on towards Vic-sur-Aisne. However, we arrived at-----Army Headquarters about two o'clock, and found them in a beautiful chateau. With certain formalities we were taken into the colonel's office, and greeted most cordially. He was delighted to see any friend of Colonel Collardet's. We told him our mission in the zone of the army was in view of relief work. He at once said, " What can I do for you? " So we told him how far our passes allowed us to go. But that was not the question; it was now where we would like to go, and how many days we had. It was Saturday noon, and although we had intended to go back to Paris that night, I knew that if he offered something worth while we did not have to get back to " work " until Monday morning. To be facetious I said, " Colonel, my one desire is to get as near St. Quentin as [ 202 ] "No Man's Land" between Noyon and Vic-sur-Aisne "The whole world seems a maze of trenches ^nd barbed wire, no vege- 201. 1 he whole world seems a maze ui uciiuia <»■■" u«lu the trees just trunks, which stand shattered. There is i tation; it all looks like a desert of desolation." See page You Who Can Help possible, and I should also like to go to Soissons." He walked over to his map on the wall and said, " Bon, you can go to Soissons this afternoon." Miss Casparis in a half apologetic voice said, " Could we go to Le Chateau Coucy?" " Certainly, if they are not shelling there this afternoon." From then on things began to look and feel very thrilling. So after planning out two days for us he said he would get our permits and send an officer of his staff with us. He came back with the papers, and the information that the general of the ----- army would like to be presented. His office was in a wonderful room in the chateau, and the whole thing seemed like a drama on the stage. Soon with our wonderful permit and nice French officer we were on our way to Soissons. That place is pathetic, shelled from one end of the town to the other, the wonderful French cathedral more than half in ruins, most of the glass gone, and all the stone arches and columns shattered and fallen. The most pathetic part is that one end of [ 203 ] You Who Can Help a small nave is still being used, although sand-bags are piled high at the end, and tons of stone and masonry lie in heaps on the floor. We had been there but a short time when there came the crack! crash!! of the big guns, and the few French soldiers about said, " Ah, the bombardment has begun." By the sound I thought they were at least bombarding the cathedral itself, but of course it was simply the afternoon bombardment of some place, but not of Soissons. After leaving poor shattered Soissons our objective was Coucy, and Chateau Coucy. This was over pretty flat country, and the right side of the road for miles and miles was screened from the enemy. All types of screening seemed to be used, the thick brush, netting with bunches of grass tied in so as to fill each hole, and miles and miles of what we would call burlap two widths stretched from tree to tree where there were trees, or poles or trees put in for the purpose. The cloth was punched with small holes so that it could not catch the wind, and come down. A short way from Soissons the road- guard came out from his abri (these guards live in the funniest little holes in [ 204 ] You Who Can Help the side of the road) and he asked for our papers. The French officer with us asked if the road to Coucy was safe. The guard said, " They have not begun to shell it to-day, but depechez-vous." We hurried all right! And for one who had not been to war before it was thrilling. We arrived in Coucy only to see more destruction; in fact there seemed to be nothing with four walls and roof on the same building, but in pieces of houses sol- diers were making themselves as comfort- able as possible. There is not a stick of furniture in the houses, but to a poilu, these days, a wall or a roof is a good deal. The old castle ruins stand out picturesque upon the hill, compared to the hideous devastation the Bocnes have wrought. From Coucy we went to Epagny and Nouvron, to Chauny, and crossed the Oise on an excellent bridge that is being con- structed. The bridge destruction is also most complete from the German point of view, for every bridge large and small is destroyed, and the ends dynamited in a way to make the next bridge necessarily longer. There is not one building standing at [ 205 ] You Who Can Help Nouvron, and as this was German head- quarters for a long time, all the signs, all the warnings, were in German. There were a temporary German Red Cross dress- ing-station, a maze of German trenches and abri, endless hand grenades, cans for generating gas for the gas attacks, and every implement of war one could imagine. The road to this place was almost impas- sable, the shell-holes were so many and so deep. The country on either side of the road was so filled with huge shell-holes, you could n't tell where one began and the other left off. Each place we came to seemed worse than the one before, but as Chauny was a city with factories (there were large mirror works there), the ruins of this city had a different appearance. The whole city has practically gone, but here and there rise tons of machinery in rusty, shattered heaps, a silent reminder that at one time Chauny was an industrial town of no small size. From Chauny we went up through end- less ghosts of what were villages to the Eitel Friedrich Tower, in the Bois-de- l'Abbe. Of course from this tower we could look into St. Quentin well, with glasses, but the day was not clear enough [ 206 ] You Who Can Help to see it well otherwise. From here on was the terrible destruction of the fruit trees, all cut and neatly cut, and so systematically that none escaped. It was really too hideous to see mile after mile of trees lying just where they fell, and to realize that the poor people are deprived of what little fruit they might have had. The road from Serancourtto Roupy was to me almost like a dream. The line of sausage balloons which are up for obser- vation were behind us, aeroplanes were scooting around overhead, and we passed droves of tiny, dusty donkeys which are used to carry ammunition into the trenches, and St. Quentin with its forty-five thousand Germans was only about four kilometers away before us! In front of us to the left, but in front of the city, shells were bursting and dirt and debris were thrown up like geysers. They were shells from the French artil- lery on our left, disturbing the Germans in front of St. Quentin. We could only stop the motor for a few minutes on this road, for the officer with us was afraid the motor on that road might draw the Ger- man fire, which would be pretty hard on [ 207 ] You Who Can Help the poor poilus who were in that sector after we had scooted by. From Roupy we went to Ham, and as Major P-----at Compiegne had given me a letter to an American aviator in the Lafayette Escadrille, we went to the avia- tion field and examined the various types of planes, and incidentally had a delightful time. Ham is another large city; it is practi- cally demolished, but they have cleaned the streets of the debris very nicely, and one can get through anywhere in a motor. From there we came down through Guis- card, Noyon, Cuts to Vic-sur-Aisne, where these nice French officers urged us to dine at their mess, for it was nearly eight o'clock when we reached there. But as we had to reach Paris that night, we had to decline and bid farewell to the officer who had made this trip with us. So we continued on our way, arriving in Paris at midnight, having had three memorable days, and an experience few others have had. [ 208 ] r.r«A ■ ft i9'7- Marlborough had a wonderful time at the English front in Flanders, and what do you suppose he did while he was there? Last Saturday night several Hauley- Paige 'planes were going on a bombing raid on the German gares, ammunition dumps, etc., and he was asked if he wanted to go along. I am afraid I should have found important business to attend to, but not Marlborough, — he went. They flew about thirty kilometers back of the German lines, dropped bombs on railroad stations, ammunition stations, etc. The Germans put their searchlights on them, which Marlborough said was the only uncomfortable time, — to be suddenly thrust in the lime-light. There were no shots which came uncomfortably near, he said, but I assure you a bombing trip over the German lines is a thrilling experience, isn't it? The household is a bit upset to-day, for Sophie's brother left last night for the front; he is in the Foreign legion, and by the looks of her eyes she spent the night in [ 236 ] You Who Can Help tears. But to-day she is in tears of joy, for she has heard from her father for the first time since the war began. He and her two sisters are all right and all well. When one is resigned to no news, the sud- den joy of even good news is upsetting. Really what people can go through and are going through, in this war, is a revelation. C 237 ] Paris, August 7, 1917. We were so happy to-day to receive let- ters from you all. You never say the same things, and if you did we would n't mind. You are apparently canning everything in sight, but you won't regret it. You are probably sick of the sight of a Mason jar or a jelly tumbler, but I know just how much like a million dollars they will look one of these days. I hate to think of your doing it in all the heat, and your prophecy that it was probably hotter in Paris was wrong. It is cool and rainy, and I guess we are not going to have any warm weather. As Moll and I have both used our silk puffs on our beds practically every night, I begin to wonder what we can do when winter comes. I see where we shall have to have two apiece then! You have asked what Moll was doing this vacation, and I don't wonder you ask. Until to-day some of the girls have been in town, and it is either having some of the girls for luncheon, and tennis at St. Didier Club in the afternoon, or spending the day with the girls. And if there has [ 238 ] You Who Can Help been a free morning or afternoon she has come to the Alcazar and has done some good work. Although it is not even warm, I know she should have a change. It is hard for me to make up my mind to leave Marlborough, but next time he goes out perhaps I can get away for a few days. Sundays we try to get away for the day, and it really means a real rest, for then we are out of call of our good friends, and from all work and writing, and must relax. If it does not rain this Sunday we are going to try and spend the day and possi- bly Saturday night at Fontainebleau. And one Sunday we are going to Sceaux, where the cafes are up in the trees. That idea pleases Moll a lot, and it delights my soul not a little. We had one Sunday in a lovely garden out beyond Auteuil, and down by the quai. These days out of doors, when we can all shake our work and all be together, mean everything to me. You asked if food was higher and harder to get. It is quite a bit higher than last winter, for instance, but there is plenty of it, certain things are harder to find, but you forget them, and just have something else. [ 239 ] You Who Can Help Paris is simply bristling with Americans; land knows where they all come from, or how they get here, but they are all here, and most men in uniform of some de- scription. C 240 ] Houlgate, Calvados, August 14, I9l1> As you see, the bird has flown, and I am not in Paris, but up here in Normandy, in a wonderful seashore spot, Houlgate. Last week Marlborough found he would be away from Monday until Friday of this week, so that seemed like a wonderful chance to give Moll some sea-bathing. Although I know no one here, I heard the beach was fine and only six hours from Paris. Moll and I spent three hours Sun- day afternoon going from one commissaire de police to another, to get our papers, and left Paris at eight o'clock yesterday morning. It was a delightful day, and as we had only two people in our carriage part of the time, the time passed very quickly, and, after a fine luncheon on the train, we arrived at two o'clock. The hotel is large, and all but sitting on the beach; the Casino and the hotels on the beach are now hospitals. Our room is very comfortable and the table is very good; as it is an expensive place they both should be good. After signing all papers here to register [ 241 ] You Who Can Help with the police, we went at once to the beach, where we reveled in the sand all the afternoon until about five, when we went in for a swim. The water was per- fect, and we hated to come out, and have both decided that the Channel is a fine place to bathe. But it was queer to bathe with two huge Taubes floating in the heavens above. We sat around and watched these funny French people after dinner, and then had a nice night's sleep. This morning we were in the water again at eleven. I can't tell you how funny it seems to loaf, for since September 15 last year I have only missed one day from the Alcazar, ex- cepting the days I had near the front. I thought I would bring bunches of letters to answer; then I decided as I had but four days to be away I would get more rest if I did absolutely nothing. The beach is huge and wonderful, and our bathing-suits would almost shock the Shack styles. They consist of short trou- sers, not bloomers, and a short Russian blouse, and the best part of all no stock- ings. Moll is loving it all, and it is such pleasure to do this for her. After the won- derful year she put in at school, she de- [ 242 ] You Who Can Help serves a fine time. With her new striped silk sweater and cane, she is quite the smartest thing on the beach. This afternoon we walked by the beach to Dives-sur-Mer, the next place, where I purchased two platters at a very small price, to replace two which have been broken, at a big Normandy pottery place. Then we ran across a fascinating spot, a hotel, or at least an inn, the home of William the Conqueror. The inn and the wonderful things in it and the garden one could never describe. We had tea here, and incidentally a thunder-shower! We shall be here two more days, then back to Paris Friday, when Marlborough will get back. He is out all along the " to be " American line, and seeing what the opportunities for his work at headquarters will be. I have visions of his leaving Paris for headquarters about the middle of the month, although nothing has been said yet. But I know that is the reason we are not summering any longer, and I am sure you will quite understand. Do not think that we are suffering with the heat in Paris; it has been cool all the time and hard to realize that it is summer. Why it is I [ 243 ] You Who Can Help don't know but this place is really summer- like ; light clothes look and feel all right. To go back, — Thursday night we dined with the American consul-general, and had a delightful time, for he is a dear. Then came Marlborough's birthday, and a nice little birthday dinner by ourselves at Tour d'Argent. Sunday night we dined with General Pershing. He had a dinner of about twenty-five, and out of the twenty-five about eight women. General Joffre was expected at the dinner, but at the last mo- ment something turned up to prevent his coming. I am sorry it did, for I should have loved to meet him that way. [ 244 ] Paris, August 20, 1917. Here I am back in Paris again, after five perfect days at the shore. We arrived about eight Friday night, and found Marl- borough here; he had arrived about an hour before. His trip had been very suc- cessful, and delightful as well. I quite envied him the trip to Rheims, for that is one place I would love to go. I think he was surprised to see so much of the Cathe- dral standing, for they are constantly dropping shells in there, and you wonder there is anything left. I was delighted to find letters from you all waiting for me, and a box of sugar from you. Thanks a thousand times, for that means we can ask people in for tea without the fear of lack of sugar. And as one of my co-workers, who has just gone home, gave me a couple of pounds she had, I feel rich in sugar. You asked if I liked the sugar, or what we would like. Of course the sugar is wonderful, and a tremendous help, and if I could have a box about every three months, our guests could always have [ 245 ] You Who Can Help sugar. I would love another box about December. Moll and I often think about the gum-drops you sent, but they are hardly a necessity! They really arrive better than hard candies, for some reason, for some of the hard candies showed the effect of sitting in a hot place on the way. The only idea for us all to have at pres- ent is to beat the Boche. Marlborough said when he went along the line where the American troops are, the appearance and military discipline made an excellent impression. They all looked in fine shape physically, and ready for what's before them. You say you know nothing about troops leaving America; we know the same, noth- ing, about their arriving in France. I heard yesterday that certain artillery regi- ments had arrived. I imagine few of the original people are still in those regiments, and as they don't come to Paris, it takes some time to hear who is here. How I should love to sit on the dock and see everybody as they land! Canteen work at the American Base was terribly tempting, but you can't do everything, although you want to. [246 ] Paris, August 26, 1917. Marlborough has been away for a few days but came back last night, and to-day received the news that he was a lieutenant- colonel in the National Army. Colonel Churchill seems too wonderful, and natu- rally I am perfectly delighted. My card plate is wearing thin, changing titles so often. I have just received the Major and Mrs. Churchill cards! The colonel leaves for the front Thurs- day, and it is hard to realize that he will be at the front until this terrible war is over. His work, I hope, will bring him back occasionally. All the courage and cheerfulness I have learned from these wonderful French people this past year helps as I face this none too cheerful future. Although I am terribly proud to have him out there doing his part, I assure you the fighting on this western front is something one can't conceive of. Yesterday came a letter from Ham from Doctor Kilham, asking whether, if I could get a hundred more rabbits, she could have them. It was so gratifying to have the [ 247 ] You Who Can Help money for them from my " fund " and to know that fifty families are to be made happy. I sent for my rabbit man, and notified the doctor to send a camion down: the rabbits leave Paris at six this morning. As I was also engaged in buying a wooden leg yesterday, you see my duties vary. [ 248 ] Paris, September 4, 1917. Well, the hard break has come and past, Marlborough is at the front, and I am adjusting myself to life here without him. It was not easy to have him go, as you well know, and this war is n't a simple thing for anyone to face, but everything is by com- parisons. And compared to the suffering about me, I have not a thing to even speak of, in simply separation, when we are all well, and all busy. He left Saturday morn- ing early, and to-day is Tuesday, and I received my first letter this afternoon, which one of his associates brought in. I am not worrying about his discomforts, for I think he is about to live in a marvel- ous chateau! In the note I received he said he saw practically everybody we know in the army, and when he goes to artillery headquarters I hope to hear particulars of everybody. Life is certainly a curious thing these days. I am happy that we can feel our Government has been on the job, since we came into this fray, and the best part is they have certainly guarded a great deal from the press. They have said little, but [ 249 ] You Who Can Help evidently things are happening all the time, and our first big force is under intensive training at the front here. I am still at my old job, and shall stick to it as long as they need me, and as long as the work goes on in the same way. The Red Cross has not taken it over as yet, and work is going on there in full force, yet handicapped by lack of girls, for until we know whether the Red Cross is to take it over, we cannot send for girls from this end. To-day came a rush order for two hundred cases of dressings for Roumania, so with the regular work it has been rather an exciting day. When I came home for luncheon, I found that my maids were in a great state of excitement. A few days ago my cook heard that her niece, sixteen years old, had been left in some little town which the Germans had recently evacuated. It has been impossible for us to get into commu- nication with her, to tell her where her mother was, and that her father was still fighting for France, and well. Although we could n't reach her by letter, we could write to her father that she had been found, although nothing has been heard of her sister. [ 250 ] 'We found Roye very much in ruins. The cathedral must have been a most beautiful one." See page 232. You Who Can Help Yesterday the father was liberated from service and sent back to work in the mines, for he was a miner by trade. He hap- pened to go through Lyons, and while there, just passing through, he heard his daughter had just been sent to Lyons by the Government; he went where the refu- gees were and found her, and brought her here to Clemence. So, when I came in, the poor old father and daughter were sitting in the kitchen, neither able to do much more than weep, their joy was so great. The girl had absolutely nothing in the world but the few clothes she had on, so I knew I must find a coat and hat for her, at least. My own wardrobe is a " war wardrobe," which I assure you is pretty nearly bare necessities. However, I did have two suits, which hardly seems extrava- gant, for one cannot stay in bed while one suit is being pressed! But when Moll said, " Mother, that girl needs it more than you do," that was enough. So with the suit and a small black hat and a pretty white blouse which I had given Moll but which she said was too large for her, we made the girl very happy. One could n't really grasp what a horror the last three years must have been to that [ 251 ] You Who Can Help child. Death cannot be half as hard to bear as the mental agony and heartache for those whose children have been carried away. With the few sous a day the French poilu gets, and the child penniless, you can imagine the amount of money they had between them! They had a nice luncheon here in the kitchen, and the poor old man had only one other idea besides weeping, and that was to take the child to the mother. So, thanks to my fund, I gave him some money, and they left this after- noon for a little town out near Belfort. [ 252 ] Paris, September 9, 1917. I was perfectly delighted yesterday to have Marlborough call me up from " Somewhere in France "; it was fine to hear his voice and to know that he was all right. It seems that he had not re- ceived any letters from me, excepting a couple that I had sent out by men going out; he had telegraphed asking if all was well, and had had no reply. That tele- gram I have n't seen yet 1 So you can see the front is not a very easy place to com- municate with. Just where the letters have gone that I have mailed daily to him, I know not. But the nicest part of all was to hear that he would have to come in some day this week, on business. We are still working like beavers; yes- terday Mrs. Lathrop told me that two thousand cases would arrive to-day, which does n't suggest a day of loafing. Just how long they are going to continue to come no one knows. I hope the comfort bags from Honolulu are in this lot of cases. Have the Farmington comfort bags been sent? If they are all on the way, I think [ 253 ] You Who Can Help I shall make a collection for Christmas morning at the train. Moll and I went down to the two trains this morning as we did last week Sunday, and had a beautiful time. There were not more than two thousand men this morning, and most of them were in very good spirits. Friday night we went to Mme Destray's canteen, where we gave the men a party, it being the third anniversary of the battle of the Marne. There were about eighty there, and they had a glorious time, eating, singing, and smoking their heads off. When you know what their daily life is, and the sadness and sorrows many are carrying in their hearts, I can't tell you the pleasure I have in helping them relax and for a few hours have a jolly time and for- get the war. There is so much sadness, as well as agony, in this heathenish war, that I think it is up to all of us to be as cheerful as we can, and give as much pleasure as we can. The other day after Marlborough left, and I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of life, but knew I had to go on facing the unknown future cheerfully, I know I walked down the Champs Elysees with a long face, for life looked pretty serious. [ 254 ] You Who Can Help Before I reached the Alcazar, I passed a dear young poilu, with both arms off above the elbow. He was alone; he had a cigar- ette in his mouth, and was as cheerful as a May morning, walking along with almost American energy. At once I was ashamed of the sad feelings I was trying to walk off and realized I had nothing to be sad over. When I reached the Alcazar there was a cheerful, jolly Colonial, in his little red fez and baggy trousers, with both arms gone at the shoulder; he just thought he would like to see the work there, for he had received such nice things from there, when he was in the hospital. When he apologized for not saluting but, as he said, had given his arms for France, that was enough. So people who have health, and have not met sorrow in this war, ought to be taken out and shot at daylight, if they make themselves, and everybody around them, miserable, worrying about what might happen. Be cheerful for those who have nothing left in life to be cheerful over is my motto. [ 255 ] Paris, September 14, 1917- How could I write you anything nicer than to tell you that Marlborough is sitting here doing some work on his typewriter. Yesterday he reached me on the long- distance from the front, saying that he was obliged to come to Paris on business, with General K-----, and that they would both be in for dinner about eight. Almost on the minute they appeared, and although the two weeks he had been gone was nothing in these times, it was and is such a joy to know that he is going to be able to come in sometimes, and what is more will have to, on business! And now that this first break is over it will be much easier, although life at the front is not one you would choose. It is not that he is living in the front-line trenches, — far from it, for he is at present in a delightful and historic chateau. But with German bombing raids, there are places safer than headquarters. It seems the Huns thought they had made a ten-strike the other night and even had the general's house, but it was the next town, which from [ 256 ] You Who Can Help the air looked the same, — statues in the square and all. A miss is as good as many miles. I know you have been roasting to death this summer, and I hope have cooled off now. I have been warm twice this sum- mer, and only one of those days would it have been more comfortable without a coat. And as for the coming winter I am well provided for in wood; yesterday I received 140 francs' worth of wood, and stored it in my cave in the cellar, so don't give me a thought, and I also have the wood from many boxes sent to me. I know the joy of a box-cover fire in the bed-room, but I can't believe it is all but time for such things again, not having any summer. [ 257 ] Paris, October i, 1917. I have been to see the work being done for the re-education of the mutiles at the Grand Palais. The entire building is now a huge military hospital, and in the court- yard are many little shops where the con- valescents are allowed to learn a trade fitted for artificial arms, or maimed and helpless hands, some work which will give them employment during the period of convalescence, or fit them for a new trade in their maimed condition. I have been especially interested in a little shop where the men were making and dressing dolls. It is most complete. They take a bit of pulp and place it in molds and presses, and it shortly turns into arms, legs, and heads for dolls; they put them together, and paint the faces and arrange the clothes and hair with the utmost in- terest and care. These men are either convalescing to go back to the front, or to be discharged and sent out into the world to find employment, crippled in body for life. There were many of these men about to be discharged, [ 258 ] You Who Can Help and there seemed to be no way of fitting them out with warm clothing. So some money from my " fund " was put into good warm underclothing and socks, and their gratitude was almost pathetic. To-day I received a couple of dolls for " the kind American ladies who sent them the clothes." The costume of the one I send you was surely a special effort. Bless their hearts, these poor poilus have such cour- age, one could never do better than try to follow their wonderful example. [ 259 1 Paris, October 2, 1917. These days are naturally crowded with important work. I hate to be pessimistic about any phase of it, but with Russia prac- tically out of the running, what is to pre- vent Germany from putting her entire force on this western and Italian front? I think we all realize that we have got to go the limit in preparation to save the lives of as many of our men as we can. Dear little old France is still pegging along and I feel that her hardest winter was last win- ter. I think that this one will be easier, for the English troops are in fine form, and the American troops are on French soil and can be in shape to help soon. Marlborough is busy. He is, by the way, a lieutenant-colonel in the Regular Army now. I can't follow all the changes in rank of all our good army friends. I want to see them all do their part in put- ting down the Hun — quick I Last night the heavens were so full of aeroplanes one could n't do any dreaming. I was turning in about twelve when Moll opened her door, and said, " The aero- [ 260 ] You Who Can Help planes are making such a noise they woke me up." And I did n't wonder, for the noise was exactly like the sawmill which used to " sing " so constantly when we lived in Elm Square. So with the pink satin puff about her and the blue one about me, we hung out of her window. The heavens were full of aeroplanes. With their lights they are the prettiest things in the world. After a while we went to bed, but I guess the noise went on all night. The Boches are getting active in the air now; they will bear careful watching. England is getting her share of annoyance from them, but I hope she will continue to keep them under control. The Germans are busy all the time, whether they are in the trenches, under the sea or in the air. Of course losing Riga, and having Rus- sia practically out of the game is no joke. England, however, is doing wonderfully well and her strength to-day is superb. She may have taken three years to build her army, but she has arrived with it now. [ 261 ] Paris, October 14, 1917. I am wondering if letters with you are as irregular as they are at this end. I re- ceived one of September fifth and one of the twenty-third at the same time. They are a joy to get, so I don't care when they come. I went to my little canteen Friday even- ing, and a Frenchman on permission in Paris, who was a noted opera singer and head of music of some division, had prom- ised to sing. P----- went with me and thought the whole thing was one of the most impressive things he had ever seen. This man sang most divinely; you never heard anything more wonderful. It was he who stood up and sang at Rheims when the Cathedral was being bombarded; for this he was afterwards decorated. I know that you will be entertained when you hear that I am now in uniform. There are so many women arriving in Paris that the A. F. F. W. thought it best to protect the young girls working for them by hav- ing a uniform. Consequently it was up to the old workers to get their uniforms at [ 262 ] You Who Can Help once. The motor service have always been in uniform, so we adopted their summer type, — a covert cloth, with dark-blue col- lar and sleeve ornament, the Sam Brown belt, and I adopted the leather buttons in preference to the Red Cross buttons, which look much smarter. The shoulder straps have A. F. F. W. in dark blue. My hand is so cold I can't write more, so I must go to bed to get warm. I think that until November i we shall be having some of our most uncomfortable days, for we can't have heat until then. [ 263 ] Paris, October ig, 1917. We are all so pleased over the bagging of the bunch of Zepps day before yester- day, and naturally it gives one a feeling of confidence in French anti-air gunnery. The one which came down intact, and surren- dered, is within a few kilometers of Marlborough. The alarm was given in one section of Paris by the Gare du Nord, but not up in this part of the world. As this was at two o'clock, and the " danger past" not until five, I am glad I was spared. Moll and I are well, and she is so in- terested in a Halloween party she is going to, she can think of nothing else. She must go as a black cat; it is an awful thing when the next generation have the same ideas you have had. She was much amused when I told her that I went as a cat once. So in our odd moments we are constructing a cat! By the way, if you can get another box of sugar started to me for December I should be awfully grateful. I still have one box untouched, and it may be enough, [ 264 ] You Who Can Help for I know I shall not have to use any of it this month. But our sugar allowance has been cut down a third, allowing half a pound per person a month, and that al- lowance has been struck off for the month of December on our card. No one can buy ahead, for you can only get your allow- ance anyway. It does not bother me a bit, for I don't think we need it. Clemence's filleul, who is a Belgian, was in last week on permission, and he said there was lots of sugar at the front, and that he would send her a kilo in December for cooking. So I know we shall probably have plenty, but if it is not hard for you to get, I think another box started for us would be wise. Milk is also hard to get now; you can't get milk after eight o'clock in the morn- ing. In a private house that means noth- ing, but last week when P-----was up, he said he ordered his coffee about eight-thirty at the hotel, and they said it would have to be without milk at that hour. And you can't get milk anywhere with afternoon tea any more. As Moll said, what is to pre- vent the cows from giving milk, even if it is war? But the truth of the matter is the cattle are being consumed by the army, and the lack of men results in lack of care [ 265 ] You Who Can Help for breeding, therefore there is much less milk. We are all delighted to-day over the good results of the Aisne offensive, and it is such a help to have this little bit of cheer come now. Every inch of ground gained, I feel like getting out and waving the flag. I don't believe in America one can realize what a fighting machine Germany is. [ 266 ] Paris, November i, 1917. The news from Italy, coming just now, is too disheartening, and so unexpected. Whether the Hun means to get into the heart of Italy, or pass through and hit at France in a new spot, remains to be seen, but we shall see pretty quickly. And those poor Italians have done so well, and under such difficulties. This is All Saint's day, and a real holi- day for me, as far as the Alcazar is con- cerned, which is quite wonderful. But a holiday not only means no Alcazar work, but a grand chance to do some of the other million things I like to do. At present I am tremendously interested in a mother and daughter who have been sent out as refugees from St. Quentin. During these years of the war they had been hiding in their house the son, who was not strong physically, from the iron hand of the Germans. The husband and father was taken at once, and sent somewhere to work in field or factory for the Germans. His fate they never knew. But for over two years they kept the boy hidden in the [ 267 ] You Who Can Help cellar, until, a few days ago, they were told to evacuate, and the boy was discovered. Naturally his fate is unknown to them now. This mother and daughter are people of very comfortable circumstances ordi- narily, but now suffer the same fate as every other refugee. Mile. Fritsch secured work for them both, and her concierge gave them a garret room, with nothing else, for she had nothing to give. I told Mile. Fritsch that if she would find a couple of rooms for them, which they could call their own, I would (out of my " fund") pay their rent for a year, and through other people get them a few neces- sities. At the end of that time, both being able to work, they could get on their feet, and take care of themselves. We have found the place for them, and last night they came up, and we fixed up the papers, and paid down the first three months' rent. I never saw such courage in my life as they have, and such gratitude. To-morrow, after work, I am going to get them a bed (someone has given them a mattress). Mrs. R-----is going to give me a table and two chairs for them, and some sheets and towels she brought with her. I asked them if they had anything, [ 268 ] You Who Can Help and the woman told me of the promise of the mattress, and said they had towels, for they did a few clothes up in towels to bring out by hand. And not wishing to take from me anything which they had them- selves, she said, " If you have towels don't give them to us, for we have four; give them to those less fortunate who have n't any." And to see them, one would never suspect they needed anything; for that rea- son it is more difficult for them, but they have literally nothing. Yesterday they saw someone who left St. Quentin after they did, who told them that everything in their house had been taken or demolished by the Germans, and if St. Quentin were evacuated to-morrow they would find nothing of what was home to go back to. It is impossible to imagine what one's feelings would be, under such circum- stances, but their courage is something wonderful to see. And they never show any bitterness, or wish they could be spared facing the future. Instead they show tre- mendous gratitude for any assistance, and face conditions with the realization there are others less fortunate than they are. [ 269 ] Paris, November 3, 1917. Yesterday morning a dear little French lady, with a little black bonnet and a tight- fitting, jetted cape, came into my office and brought me a diplome de belle action from the French Comite National Central, voted at their meeting of October 7 in recogni- tion of my kindness to the poor soldiers blesses et tuberculeux. Naturally I am ter- ribly pleased to have it and will send it to you to keep for me, for it will interest Moll to have it apres la guerre. The so- ciety was founded before the war, for the relief of suffering. Until two days ago this house was so cold that my hand refused to make even signs after a couple of hours of writing. Now that the heat is turned on we are blissfully comfortable. We have sent pink pajamas and a pair of hospital socks to Moll's filleul, who has written that he is in a hospital in Flanders, not wounded, but having a lot of trouble with his right leg. We have not seen him for some time, for he was sent from Ver- dun to Flanders at a time when there was [ 270 ] J'ffiB'1! x^'v-^- ^vvv^-> ^^u^^"' -^■>>'<^'"'-—^-x-^>:,'*ry?*^'x'^ Mc" Ifll * " vWV v v v v-v v -^ ^ggj | Vt^its You Who Can Help too much activity for permissions, but she is still faithful. I still have the refugee here in the house, Clemence's niece. She is normal now, and, poor child! I would gladly do anything for her, and Moll is so good to her. Moll had a Victor given her, and Eugenie builds a fire in Moll's room for her, and takes in her tea, and is absolutely happy if Moll will start the Victor and let her stay and hear it. And Mollie never tires of hear- ing of her life with the Germans. Marlborough just appeared! And I am too happy to have him back here again. He brought a huge piece of the L 49, one of the Zeppelins that were brought down. [ 271 ] Paris, November 27, 1917. Yesterday afternoon I met a charming English colonel who has just returned from Italy. He was telling of conditions there, which are none too cheerful, and his re- mark, " This is some war," fully, yet simply, expressed the feeling we all have. If you could see the pile of letters I have before me you would be sorry for me. All the women and girls I know at home, who are not over here, have written asking me to send for them. They 'd better stay where they are, and keep up their good work at that end, and prepare for what is before them, in caring for our own con- valescent, blind, and mutilated. That has got to come, and the work of that kind will not all be here in France. They 'd best leave their share of food here for some man who has to be here. It is appalling when you think of the number of men in France to-day from all the Allied coun- tries. Thousands of women are arriving, and such a collection. Many have never stirred from their home towns before, and I think [ 272 ] You Who Can Help it is a crime the way all these young girls are flocking over here. What their parents are thinking of I don't know. I have received the letter written my birthday, and in it you said you sent off a box of Christmas jokes. How could you? I can't even think of a joke. After read- ing that I nearly sprained my brain trying to think of something funny, but nothing came! You know, I am getting queer, in Paris for the fifteenth month and cannot even think of anything funny! [ 273 ] Paris, December 5, 1917. I recently received a case from E-----, in fact two cases, which contained men's clothing and endless perfect woolen gloves for children, and boys' and men's caps. As everything seems to arrive at the right mo- ment, these cases did the same. I sent the men's caps and suits at once to Mme. De- stray, for her reformes and refugees, and although I did n't have a chance to go over that night, I heard that my sack of cloth- ing went in one door and by pieces walked out of the other, each article on, and mak- ing some man more comfortable and happy. The children's gloves I sent at once to a little orphanage, which has fifteen little girls and is supported by the income of the dear little woman who runs it. She is seventy-two, and at the present moment very ill, but will, I think, get well. Just one other woman looks after all fifteen children, and if Mme. Anderson should die no one knows what would happen to her orphanage. On Christmas this dear little old lady always asks all the poor old beggars of her [ 274 ] You Who Can Help Quartier for a Christmas dinner, consist- ing of soup and meat-and-vegetabie stew. They are all welcome, and can have all the soup and stew they can eat. The fact that she was lying in bed and could do nothing this year was not helping her convales- cence, but was making her very unhappy. So Miss Dagmar and I decided we could slip that Christmas party in with the other things we are trying to do. She is going to be responsible for the poor thing's din- ners, and I am going to give the orphans a Christmas tree and hot chocolate and cakes. Miss Dagmar went to see the dear little lady the other day to tell her for Christmas Day she would be the grand- mere, as the poor all call Mme. Anderson, in her arrondissement. She was so happy and relieved that her poor and orphans would not be forgotten, that she could do nothing but weep! This last week I have had the joy of giving personally to men who were suffer- ing with the cold, and about to return to the trenches, each a sweater, scarf, and socks, knit by your good workers in An- dover. Yesterday a nice little French sol- dier came into the Alcazar to help with the cases, and was so glad to see me; he [ 275 ] You Who Can Help said he was at Mme. Destray's canteen last Christmas, and remembered me. He is now just out of a hospital, the third time wounded, and his joy was inexpressible that his month's convalescence would not be up until after Christmas, and that he could go to our canteen party again this year. He was so neat, and such a well-set-up chap, yet he came to me and showed me that his neglige shirt was all he had on under his blouse. He did n't have an undershirt or a sweater, but had a scarf, which was doing all a scarf is expected to do and more. I gave him an Andover Red Cross sweater that I had kept for an emergency case in my desk drawer, and a nice flannel shirt. Needless to say the man was happy, and I know he was warmer. To-night before I left my office they said an Arab, Mohammed Ab Something, was there, with a note officially stamped, saying that he would die of the cold if warm clothes could n't be procured for him. My desk was piled high with work, and, knowing I had nothing there for him (the A. F. F. W., you know, is just for hospitals and wounded), I could only send word that if he would come in the morning [ 276 J You Who Can Help I would give him a sweater, socks, trench shirt, etc., which I could bring from here from your Andover work. They said he was almost on his knees in grati- tude, and asked if he could n't come in and kiss my hand! They told him he had bet- ter wait until morning, when I gave him his things, for I was very busy! So I have the Arab's gratitude to you in store for me in the morning. This started to be a Christmas letter but, as usual, I have wandered. But I did want to thank you all for making my work possible, and I know you will understand if my evenings must be spent with some of the million things I have undertaken for Christmas and my letters for a few weeks rather brief. I simply cannot help in the work of fill- ing comfort bags for our own men, so Mollie is going to the Lyceum Club every Thursday afternoon until Christmas to do this. One of us I felt should share in this work, and I could n't send a better substi- tute than dear old Moll. I had a nice letter from Marlborough, who is well. My Christmas letter, queer as it is, must go now as it is! It carries all my love, and every wish for a Merry [ 277 ] You Who Can Help Christmas and a Happy New Year, and the hope that before another Christmas season we may know what peace is, and may all be spared to enjoy it together. Our thoughts of you all will be foremost on Christmas Day, and may you receive this before the Fourth of July!!! Your foreign " home folk." [ 278 ] Paris, December 13, 1917. Until after Christmas I must snatch a moment here and there to write, and every now and then call it a letter and mail it. It seems to me never was there more I wanted to say, or never was I so full of gratitude to the Andover Red Cross. Two cases through the Red Cross turned up to-day, which gives me more for my hos- pitals' Christmas, and four boxes by mail from Mrs. G----, some from Honolulu, and some from New York. Twenty of Mrs. G----'s children's bags I am going to use for my orphanage, and the others I gave to Miss Brent to-day; she will take them to Nancy to the children's Infirmerie there, for she is to be there for Christmas. Nothing ever arrived more opportunely; now I shall not have to get little things for the orphanage, just the useful things. The collection of things I have bought would fill a book. Mollie took to school to-day two dresses, caps, scarfs, and black aprons that I had bought for her, for two orphans who had just appeared on the scene, and were coming to her school tree [ 279 ] You Who Can Help for orphans, but would get there so late that there would be nothing for them. Mollie and I could n't think of that, so that is attended to. The father and mother of my little refu- gee girl, the one here in the house, I am sending blankets to, and my St. Quentin refugees two pillows and a carpet rug. So you can see there is nothing that I do not buy. We are all doing what we can, and you will realize it when I tell you that a dear old poilu without any legs is trying to get French tobacco for me, for my hun- dred bags, for my canteen party. Not one cigarette of French tobacco or any pack- ages of tobacco has one been able to buy in Paris for two weeks at least. And this dear old soul thought he had an inside track somewhere, and could get me some. I hope he has, and it only shows that there is not anyone who is not glad to lend a hand in bringing comfort and cheer to those who are fighting this war for us. To-day I had a wonderful example of that, when Miss Davidson, who does so much for the blind, brought in a most charming Frenchman to see me, a most perfect type of gentleman in the real sense, most refined and highly educated. Both [ 280 ] You Who Can Help his eyes were gone. He said, " No one knows how hard it is for me to do nothing, when I have friends and comrades in the trenches. If I could only take the place of some man in an office, and free him for the front, I should be happy." He wants a position taking dictation on the type- writer. He can take either French or Eng- lish, and speaks four languages perfectly. But to see this tall, well-built, good-looking, wonderfully turned-out Frenchman, with eyes bandaged and two black patches, standing before you, saying, " I know I am a mutile, but I can still serve my coun- try in some capacity; I must do something, I can't sit here in the dark and let others do it all! " Poor dear — as though he had n't given his life for the cause ! 1 am naturally going to do my best for him. You can never know what these men are like until our own men who have got to meet this fate go home, to be re-educated and fit themselves for their life in dark- ness. This blindness is too awful. This morning Mollie had a note from her filleul from a hospital in Boulogne. It seems he has been gassed, and it has af- fected his eyes; at times he cannot see at all, and again he is all right. He was [ 281 ] You Who Can Help most cheerful, saying his eyes were to be operated upon the following day, when he hoped to be all right. I do hope he will be, for he has done so much, and been through so much, that we felt that nothing could happen to him. This new gas, like. everything else, is more awful than the old. A wire from Marlborough this morning says that he will pass through Paris next Tuesday. These visits to Paris I make the most of, for he is about to go back into the artillery. He is on Major-General March's staff as Chief of Artillery Opera- tions. Major-General March is in charge of all the artillery over here. It will take him to another spot entirely, and away from all work which will bring him to Paris. But we have worlds to be thankful and grateful for, and although the next few months are far from easy to face, I am here, and that is everything in these days. [ 282 ] Paris, December 22, 1917. To-night was the first Christmas party, and it was such a success, thanks to you and the many good people who sent you the money for my use at Christmas. With this and Miss Dagmar's untiring efforts to get good musicians and plan the entertain- ment, and the hundred comfort bags the Boston Farmington Society sent to me, the party was complete. It even topped off with an air-raid alarm before I got home! As I had Mollie with me, and Marlbor- ough was not in Paris, and I was too tired to get disturbed, it was just an added touch to the holiday season. The party was at Mme. Destray's can- teen, and there were one hundred and four- teen men there, some of them so happy to be back for their second Christmas in the same canteen. Their supper was excellent, as it always is, — soup, stew, and vege- tables, — and we added wine, cold ham, salad, cake, oranges, and sweet chocolate. Miss Dagmar fortunately saved up enough French cigarettes for the occasion. And through a good friend I secured [ 283 ] You Who Can Help enough tobacco for the hundred comfort bags. The place was in holiday attire, with holly and greens, and the songs and music which they had during supper were delightful. Much of it was jolly and cheerful, al- though the poilu really appreciates good music and always sits spellbound. I fear the average American soldier is far behind his poilu brother in appreciation and knowledge of music. Towards the end of supper Mollie went about distributing the cigarettes and then gave them the com- fort bags which had been piled on a table; in the center of this table was a dear little Christmas tree. The bags were splendid, thanks to the good people who worked over them, though many of them had evidently been tampered with on their way over. But with my Christmas fund I was able to add to them, and they each had pad, pencil, envelopes, toothbrush, tooth-paste, socks, French-blue handkerchief, pipe, tobacco, and either checkers or dominoes. Many had names inside, but I knew a poilu could never read American writing, so I ad- dressed an envelope and put a 25-centime stamp on it, and put one in each bag. I [ 284 ] You Who Can Help do hope some of the Farmington Society hear from them, but if not, they will have to accept from me the appreciation and the pleasure I had in seeing the joy it brought to the men. Towards the end of the evening, after supper and after the men had finished ex- amining their bags, the doors into the courtyard were thrown open, and seventy- five or a hundred Americans, headed by Doctor Cabot of Boston, sang Christmas carols. It was beautiful! And to see these hundred poilus, one by one, grasp the meaning and one by one stand facing the darkness where these voices came from and take off their caps or trench helmets, and stand spellbound, was most impressive. It was a wonderful sight and one I shall never forget. After the carols were over and the ones who had taken part had left, it began to feel like a pretty serious and triste end- ing of the evening. But this was all over quickly when they asked for the American national air, with many a " Vive I'Ame- rique." And if anything is ever funnier than a handful of people who do not pretend to sing bursting forth in their most patriotic manner with " Oh, say can you see," usu- [ 285 ] You Who Can Help ally pitched in high C, I am sure I do not know what it is! But our intentions were excellent, and a too solemn ending averted, and the party finally ended with a glorious roof raising Marseillaise. If you could only hear a hundred or a thousand poilus, in the midst of this too horrible war, throw themselves into the Marseillaise as they sing it, I should be happy. One could never make you understand what it is like; it is beyond what mere words can describe. After the party was over, although only about half-past eight, Mollie and I were very hungry, so we decided that the quick- est way to get back was to take the metro to Passy. We had hardly come out of the metro at Passy, when " bedlam " was let loose, all the sirens in the world screech- ing, and fire engines dashing by. The night was glorious, with a full moon, and it was hard to tell aeroplanes from stars. While we waited for the tram, and walked from the end of the line, our gaze was all skyward, you may feel sure. Nothing happened, and now it is two hours after, the " danger past " signal has been given, and everything is as calm as a May morning. I have sent off my eleven poilu packages, and most of them [ 286 ] You Who Can Help contained some of your good Andover sweaters, socks, and mufflers, but not a cigarette! They send so much tobacco to the front, hospitals, etc., where there is a daily allowance, that not one bit of French tobacco have I been able to get in Paris for a month. A thousand thanks to all the good people who sent me money, and made these parties possible. [ 287 ] Paris, December 29, 1917. I must tell you about my orphanage Christmas party. I have written to you of Mme. Anderson's little orphanage of twenty girls, between the ages of seven and fifteen, and I told you that she was very ill, so Miss Dagmar and I told her we would attend to their Christmas. Some surprise bags for children which Mrs. G----sent me from Honolulu came to me just at the right moment, and they were lovely, and all quite different, and she had marked the appropriate age on the outside. And with my ever-delight- ful Christmas fund, I purchased a soft, warm, real wool cache-nez for each child. In our part of the world we would call them mufflers plain and simple, but as they always wind up in them until the nose is hidden, the name is appropriate. We had sweet chocolate tied up in bright ribbons, paper caps (we hope not made in Ger- many), and a shining new franc piece for each. And we gave them hot chocolate and cakes to eat. You would have laughed if you could have seen me getting there, [ 288 ] You Who Can Help the taxi filled with these things, and by my side a Christmas tree, with all its little trimmings, that we had had on our own table Christmas night. Some of the girls went over to help us, but above all to be audience, for these poor little things had learned songs to sing and pages upon pages of poetry to recite. I wish you could have seen the faces of these little souls when they saw their table laden with cakes, and the Christmas tree in the center with all its little candles burning. My idea was to let them begin and enjoy it at once, but no, their songs must be sung and their poetry recited before anything as frivolous as eating could begin. Although I appreciated their efforts, I was a bit ab- sorbed in whether my candles would last and whether the tree would catch on fire in the usual fashion. This did not happen, and such a thing should really go on record! Before the children came in, and while we were arranging things in the kitchen, the brother of the one woman who cares for the children appeared. He had re- cently lost his wife and child, and felt that he must see some children enjoying Christ- mas. So we decided he should be Santa [ 289 ] You Who Can Help Claus, I mean Pere Noel, and bring in the presents. He arranged a long white beard from some cotton I had brought over for snow, and with a blue cape, with hood turned up, and the gifts in a large pillow-case on his back, to say nothing of his cape and pointed hood covered with real snow, he was as good a Pere Noel as one could wish for The children adored it, and he entered into their fun, and con- tributed tremendously towards making the party a success. Although I shall always remember the Christmas tree for the children, on the after deck of a transport in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as being an interesting experience, nothing could make the deep impression the simple little Christmas we gave to these twenty little orphans made. It seemed so strange to have Santa Claus look like Santa Claus, and yet speak the language of Pere Noel! [ 290 ] Paris, January 5, 1918. I have had such a perfect ten days with Marlborough here, and although we were both busy all day long at our work, we were able to have lunch together some- where every day. And we also have been able to have the evenings together at home, which is wonderful. Last week came the news that he was to go back to the artillery. It means, of course, that my chances for seeing him so often are a thing of the past. But we are both so happy over the fact that he is with the guns again, and just where he wanted to be, that we are like a couple of kids. It takes him absolutely away from duties connected with Paris, but during the past four months, with his many trips to Paris, we have much to be thankful for. I can hear from him, and I imagine the letters will not be more than a week old. It takes five days from general headquarters now. We can wire, and off and on I shall see people coming and going to his spot, so you see I can keep very much in touch. Lucky me, to be this side of the Atlantic! [ 291 ] You Who Can Help I was rather a shirker on work on New Year's Day, for we had a holiday at the Alcazar, and I had planned to go to Mme. Anderson's orphanage and help Miss Dag- mar serve dinner to the beggars of that neighborhood. Mme. Anderson does this each year, for the paupers in her district, but this year she was not able to do any- thing on account of being ill. But Marl- borough was here, and his time was lim- ited, so I just did n't go, but, thanks to my Christmas fund, I sent a new two-franc piece for each, sixty in all. Miss Dagmar said that as she pressed the shining bit into each hand as they departed, it was a study to see their expressions. Their joy was almost pathetic. I am thankful for each day that I have Marlborough here, and I expect each one to be the last. I hope our cable went through to you on Christmas, but apparently, for weeks, the mail and cable have been all tied up in double knots. I don't care as long as the men down the line, who are, many of them, away from home for the first time, get their mail. They need it, to keep in the best shape. And think of the tons of it there must be, and with few facilities to [ 292 ] You Who Can Help handle it. One cannot expect anything like regular service for several weeks yet. My one idea these days is to hustle through work, so as to get home by the time Marlborough does. This business of being a working-girl, and having a husband on permission, is a fearful combination. One has to be neglected, and you may be sure it is my work! [ 293 ] Paris, January 8, 1918. To-day we received a lot of papers, among them the Townsman, which we read from cover to cover. The Andover boys' letters I adore. But the nicest things in the world are the letters I am receiving in appreciation of my Christmas remem- brance to them here, all filled with such genuine appreciation of hearing from someone so near them who calls Andover home. One boy whom I heard from last night said, u I did n't think that I had any lady friend so near me in France, especially one who calls Andover home. It is Home Sweet Home to me, and I wish that I was there now." Mollie seconds all his sentiments, and she is sure he is a fine lad. Our last letters were dated Thanksgiv- ing, but I know many are on the way, and when I think of the size of the trans-Atlan- tic mails these days, I wonder we ever get anything. The winter is cold with lots of snow, but a real winter that you don't mind, — noth- ing like the rainy, wet, chilly dampness of last year. My apartment is most comfort- [ 294 ] You Who Can Help able all the time, and I have lots of wood from the cases in my cellar for days when the heat gives out. Marlborough left early on Sunday morning, and these first few days with him away until spring, if not longer, are hard to settle down to mentally, but days are so full that one has n't time to think of her own troubles. Work is one's salvation, but there are times when you feel inclined to blow up, if it did n't stop for five minutes! Yesterday when I came home I found Mollie holding court in two languages. The filleul had arrived unexpectedly from the hospital in Pas de Calais, and the other was Paul J-----, who is a captain of en- gineers. It seems she would talk with one, and then pass the conversation on in an- other language. The filleul has come to Paris for his twenty-day convalescence. He is looking very well, and after three operations his eyesight is all right, but at times he has a good deal of pain in his eyes, which he says is getting less all the time. He stayed and dined with the maids, and then came in and played checkers with Moll until her bed- time. He had written her he was the [ 29S ] You Who Can Help checker expert in the hospital, so Moll, being from Missouri, wanted to see him play. This afternoon Mollie took Sophie and her brother, who is in the Foreign Legion, and here on permission, to the cinema. When he goes back, he is in the next lot to " go over the top," and he told Moll that all who lived got the croix de guerre. The Foreign Legion is certainly not spared. Fortunately, like all men made of the real stuff, he has every confidence that nothing can happen to him. [296 ] D 640 C563y 1918 01120100R IIIIMIUIIIII NLM 05007Efc.T b NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE