Over Periscope Pond

des

-Dame-des-Ch

ary 4,

st Fa

y, and they are going to give me a price on having the French accents put on it. I tried to exchange it for a French keyboard one, same machine, Corona, of course, but find it would cost twenty dollars, which is an absurd price, I think. Of course, they are selling so many here, they can ask what they want. However, I

I was home, of course, I thought that I knew what the war over here meant, but now I am beginning to realize that if I stayed here the rest of my life (which I hope I will not have to do, even with the new international complications), I would find new horrors, new complications and results every day. Of course, the object of our visiting is to determine whether the family deserves what it has asked for, and also to decide if they deserve what we can do, but they never dream of asking us to move them. Of course, the greatest difference between our work here and the ordinary visiting done by social service workers at home, is that usually the people at home have brought their present condition of misery on themselves in one way or another, while these poor souls over here have not. They have had homes, gardens, rabbits, and savings, which they tell you about as a rule with pleasure, and not emotionally. (That is one thing, these people have suffered so they do not weep any more.) These people used to help others a little, and were driven out in various horrible and less horrible ways,-marching for days on foot, a whole family, old and young, and not able to save anything, and some families separated forever, perhaps by the blowing up of a bridge behind them to

have to pay rent; that is, none who have a member at the front, and goodness knows that includes all Parisiennes, at any

hese people from the "pays envahis" such excellent aid if they pass through

ther times comparatively low, it is, even with a small supply of coal and potatoes (erratically given, for the most part), hard for a family that is run down, after the exposures and general strain of their flight, to have enough money left, when they have paid their rent, to buy very nourishing and very much food. It is most interesting to find every day new twists and turns as to what the different Comités and Mairies will and will not do. They are cutting down on everything as much as they can, and you can hardly blame them

ey are the heavier stockings they wear, and as they grow richer, the stockings become less and les

hree dear little children, two who go to school and a lovely little baby. They are all so clean, and the tiny room is spotless. The eldest boy is now sixteen, and has just been operated on for appendicitis, and has gone to some friends in the country to rest after the operation. The mother and three children spent a month in caves before

s kinds of crackers with one hand, while I finish this with the other! I shall have a splendid excuse to have a very plentiful tea th

ll the family from your ve

rj

te, brings many, many happy retur

he writing. I am terribly sorry it is so messy. I guess I