I 



THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



numbers and the calls for hospital supplies are also coming from 

 every quarter of France. These appeals are being taken care of. 

 That means a constant application of the workers and certainly 

 a strain on brain and nerves on the one who holds the lines, as it 

 were, over the whole working team. We are a bit proud of our 

 driver over here. 



xA-nd then came news of the evacuation of northern villages. 

 Without any loss of time supplies and workers were rushed to the 

 Gare du Nord to meet the trains that have been coming in ever 

 since, loaded down with refugees. It has been one long proces- 

 sion of suffering humanity, and I know I felt, after my first 

 night's work among them, as if I could never smile again. These 

 people have been hustled out of their homes, many of them for 

 the second time, and onto crowded trains to go — they know not 

 where. A few cherished belongings are usually clutched inside 

 weary arms — more often a small dog or the family cat or a cage 

 of bewildered song birds. It may be a glass domed arrangement 

 of ancestral hair; the family Bible or a blossoming plant. Not 

 much value in these things, as money is counted, but they are dear 

 to the hearts of the people. They are old, old men and women, 

 helping each other along the way ; there are weary mothers and 

 little yoimg mothers, and sick children; hurt children and even 

 lost children. Some have come in so weary and overtaxed that 

 they have died there ; babies have been born there ; families have 

 been reunited there, and every emotion of the human heart has 

 been enacted there before our eyes, and this is going on, hour 

 after hour, day and night, and there seemed no end in sight. 



Within a few days I am going into the country that we had 

 hoped to see blossoming with your trees. I shall run a dispensary 

 and work among the refugees, and, also, among the American 

 wounded. Let us hope that this work is not to last very long and 

 that we can, at least, make a beginning in the work we are both 

 so interested in. It will be a great pleasure to hear from you at 

 any time and to carry out your wishes as minutely and as soon 

 as possible. I appreciate the honor of being a corresponding 

 member of your Society. 



Mrs. Lathrop, I know, sent a cable to you as soon as it was- 

 •perfectly evident that your work had to be laid aside for the mo- 



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