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Sierra Club Bulletin 



asleep again, and then said exactly the same thing over again, and had 

 to be waked a third time, though he was as hungry as a cannibal when 

 he did finally come to. . . . 



"One evening, however, there was no singing — we knew that a train 

 of wounded was coming. It pulled in long after dark, silently as the 

 little French trains always do, and the great darkened sheds that had 

 looked so empty during our long hours of waiting were at once full of 

 people and stir. I wish I could make you see it — the French 'Auxili- 

 ares,' with their blue veils and white dresses, following closely the uni- 

 formed doctors ; the rows upon rows of stretchers with their tired, suf- 

 fering men — a white bandage showing here, there a blood-stained bared 

 arm or foot; the huddled, half-dazed groups of walking cases ranged 

 on benches or floors ; the sturdy, busy stretcher-bearers working quickly, 

 quietly, and without the least confusion ; and the ambulances burring 

 off through the dark streets with their silent, patient cargoes. 



"It was among the walking cases that we American women, four of 

 us, were chiefly busy, giving them coffee or water and talking to them. 

 They were mostly cheerful enough, uncomplaining all of them, but one 

 very young chap couldn't get his experience out of his mind. He told 

 me he hadn't slept for four nights thinking of it, and felt as if he should 

 never sleep again. His best friend had been shot down beside him and 

 had cried out, 'My God, my leg is gone !' and before this boy could get 

 to him he too was down, and he hadn't seen him again. The poor boy's 

 eyes looked as if he would never get that dazed, horrified look out of 

 them again. . . . 



"I have grown to love Paris very dearly in these three weeks. In 

 spite of its war-time mask — the piles and piles of sandbags hiding its 

 statues and doorways, its empty galleries — it is full of beauty and color. 

 The parks are gay with flowers and the flower markets still flourish on 

 the corners, and the war has not marred the beauty of the sunsets on 

 the Seine or down the long vistas of the Champs Elysees. And the 

 French spirit is wonderful. They show none of the sharp edge of strain 

 that I was so conscious of in England. The women are so poised and 

 unj angled — those at the gave, for instance, nearly every one of whom 

 had close relatives at the front, many of whom were in mourning — 

 women who worked there every day and slept there many a night. If 

 anyone even hints that Frenchwomen are not doing their part in this 

 war, don't you believe it. But I have also a profound disgust for Paris 

 — so beautiful outside, but so unspeakably rotten within. With the 

 gaiety of the better people so sobered, I suppose the underworld shows 

 in all the stronger relief. . , . 



"I'm finishing this down at Bordeaux on my way to my job. After 

 playing solitaire with me and the map of France for about a week. Dr. 

 Devine has made me delegate to the department of Landes. That 

 means that I'm to be special providence and mother superior to about 

 10,000 refugees — not loo, mind you, nor looo, but ten thousand. Do you 



