for when my present boots take wings I don't know what I shall do. I
can't afford French shoes in war-times); large sizes, both men's and
women's, and all sizes children's--women's 5, 6, and 7 lengths, C, D,
and E widths, and men's correspondingly large. Then blankets, diaper
material by the yard, men's overcoats (we had to turn away a blind boy
the other day who had had his feet and legs frozen and was lame and was
just beginning to get tuberculosis), and women's shirts and heavy union
suits. These are great needs, but if there are any available just plain
clothes,--dresses, suits, children's clothes, boy's trousers and
sweaters, neckties, gloves, ribbons, stockings, caps,--send them. If
Mother has any sewing-circle in New York or elsewhere at her command, I
should like to use it as a part of the propaganda, if I may. I believe
she suggested it. If they want to make anything, make aprons for boys
and girls from four to fourteen years, the larger sizes from ten to
fourteen being the most important. All the school children wear them,
and always black. The stuff is like lining sateen. It is astonishing to
me that not only parents, but the children, are eager for anything
black. It is more practical, of course, and as it is the custom for all
the school children to wear black, any child feels embarrassed and odd
to wear a color. Only hair-ribbons do they like bright, and this is
because they dress up on Sundays to go to the cemeteries. The apron is
an all-over apron with sleeves, and buttons up the back.
My idea is to give always what fits and what is right to each person on
the spot. Give her something to take pride in and live up to. I have
seen a nice-looking waist for a girl to wear to her work in a paper-bag
factory not only transform her looks, but the expression of her face. I
consider it as much my duty to tell people at home what we need as to go
to work every morning. If you could know how we long for packing-boxes
to come from America. Sometimes when they do come they are filled with
junk. Old dirty clothes full of holes, pieces of lace, jet
passementerie, etc., and how disappointed we are! We are hoping,
perhaps, for three dozen heavy union suits for men, and find some
worn-out long white kid gloves.
Couldn't you tell some of our dear friends about the Vestiaire? So often
at home I have heard people say, "It is awful how little I do for the
war. I would like to do more, but I don't know just what to do." Tell
them that here's an opportunity not only to help France, but to back up
Americans.
One kind of help that appeals to me strongly, though it is entirely
outside of my work here, is adopting "filleuls." Many soldiers have
wives and families who write to them and send packages and warm things,
and an occasional bar of soap, cake of chocolate, or package of
cigarettes. Then there are many poor fellows whose families are in the
invaded provinces or killed. They have no one, no encouragement, no one
to write to or get letters from or give them trifling remembrances.
These are adopted as "filleuls" (godsons) by "marraines" (godmothers),
who take an interest and try and fill the place of family to them.
Hundreds have been so adopted in America, as you know, but there are so
many more who are quite forlorn. I heard of one boy the other day who
was the only one in his regiment who never got anything, but tried to go
away by himself when he knew it was time for the mail to come. I adopted
him like a shot. I have since taken three more temporarily, as I can't
possibly afford to keep them unless I can get some one in America to
support them. Now, many of my friends cannot write French very readily
and don't want to be bothered, and it takes months, anyway, for packages
to get from New York to the French front, so I thought that if I could
get two or three people to support my boys, I would do the writing and
the sending of packages gladly, and then report to whoever was
supporting them at home and forward to the supporters the men's letters.
You spend anywhere from three dollars up for the package and send the
package once a month. I shall keep these men from now until I hear from
you and make an account of what I spend for them. Please be sure and let
me know.
One of our greatest needs is a small motor-car--we take great heavy
packages and heavy furniture all over town, and then in the visiting
work we have to go everywhere, and we get really more tired than I ever
thought it possible to get and we waste so much time walking. There are
many places where the trams and subways don't go and the auto-buses have
stopped running. Here they are too expensive to buy and mostly too poor
in quality. They ask thirty-two hundred francs for a 1910 Ford.
Affectionately,
ESTHER.
IV
FROM MARJORIE
S.S. Finland, Wednesday (December 19, 1916).
DEAR DADDY:--
At about noon yesterday, we were all thrilled to see a big transport
ship go by us to starboard. She was very lightly laden, and tossed about
at a great rate. She had no flag and no visible name, and gave us no
signal, which my friend, the purser, tells me is the custom in war-time.
She was too far off to wig-wag, and she did not wish to use the wireless
and thereby let some one else know her whereabouts. We were all duly
thrilled by her and watched her out of sight. Then we lay down again,
only to be bounced out of our chairs by the news that a French
man-of-war was passing us to port. We tooted around to the other side,
and there she was, big French flag, a medium-sized ship and a cruising
destroyer, according to the faithful purser. She went by us slowly and
gave no sign. We were duly grateful, for I can tell you her guns looked
awfully big! After she had gotten well past us, and we thought
everything was over, she suddenly fired a gun, began to steam up like
everything, and turned around remarkably quickly and came racing down on
top of us, smoke pouring out of her funnels and coming full-tilt right
at us. Nobody knew what it could mean, and then our engines stopped and
we hove to. The officers all beat it up to the bridge, and you never saw
so many sick passengers come to life and hang over the rail with the
rest of us watching. Every one had a different notion, and I can tell
you it was sort of scary, for she might be a German in disguise, and
Heaven only knows what she might do. After she got alongside, she
stopped and wig-wagged for all she was worth. After about ten minutes,
which seemed at least an hour, our engines started, and we went our way.
She circled around us, and kept going off in different directions, and
then turning. It seemed as if she was looking for something. The report
the captain gave out was that she wanted the Greenwich time; wanted to
know where we were going, and then wished us "Bon voyage." You can
believe that or not. It does not sound plausible to me, but, anyway, the
dear thing left us after having scared the life out of us. When she was
alongside, and you began to think of life in a lifeboat in this sea,
which is fairly smooth, it did not appeal. I suppose it all sounds
trivial to you,--to be held up by a warship in mid-ocean,--but with the
fact in mind that all sorts of things are happening now that never did
before, and also that she went steaming past and then suddenly turned,
we all had plenty of room for imagination. It was awfully interesting to
see how different people took it. I think I would have been scared to
death myself if it had not been for the humor of the idea of perishing
with a certain one on my arm. She, poor soul, was so frightened and weak
that she was both pitiful and laughable.
This dear boat seems to go more slowly every day. At the present rate, I
don't think we will land much before Easter! She certainly is nice and
steady, though, and if this glorious weather keeps up, I, personally,
don't care at all when we get in. It is so warm that it is really
ridiculous. Here we are at Christmas season, and yesterday I walked the
deck all the morning without even a sweater, my flannel waists being
heavy enough, though, to make up for something, I guess.
MARJE.
V
FROM ESTHER
December 16 to 31, 1916.
DEAREST SISTER:--
From subtle remarks let fall from Father's pen, I take it that my
letters have all the charming privacy of Paul's Epistle to the
Ephesians. The thought that my recountings are coldly fed to the jaws of
a typewriter without so much as considering my editorial "oui" has
caused me to give my writing-table as wide a berth as is compatible with
the size of this my dominion; but since he at the same time calls me
"fatuous child" instead of using the far more obvious and shorter
adjective, I say, So be it. The writing-table leads me on in spite of my
better self, and I settle myself before this block of cheapest French
paper with certain foreknowledge that I shall give birth--this time--to
many indiscretions. (Why be called fatuous if you cannot live up to it?)
I have an idea of compiling a list of my various friends and associates
in a series of descriptions, something like La Bruyere's
"Caractères"--only far more interesting. I realize from your letters how
stingy I have been in telling you about the pension and the people who
have invited me about in Paris, and now that my first fear is dispelled,
I shall proceed. My first fear, you see, was that the family would think
I was having too good a time and would call me home with dispatch; now
that good times manifest themselves in such rarity, I feel free to
describe those first weeks of gayety. I shan't mention war or refugees
this time, not because I don't every day live and breathe them
(sometimes not so pleasant), but because I do. To-night is my night
off--this letter is a soirée!
My room, my dominion, my home--how I love it! It is fairly large, but
larger still is the bed, which is a dominion in itself. Alongside it I
am an incident, and alongside of me the piano is an episode. The massive
orange armoire, topped by my two suitcases and a hatbox, towers in vain
when I look up at it in the early morning from my eider-down
fastness--or (see Father) slowness. "My bed is like a little boat" no
more than it is like Central Park--in fact, the darling Espagne would
seem small beside it. To enter the room, to comb the hair, to wash the
hands, to exit from the room, you must insinuate yourself between the
bed and the wall. I might say there's no getting around it.
I call the armoire Richard Coeur de Lion--it is strong and all-embracing.
I have no bureau, but dress--instead of eat--"off" the mantelpiece.
Everything is dumped into the armoire--ribbons, collars, dresses, shoes,
books, chewing-gum, hats, furs, et al., and believe me, they stand not
on the order of their going! I will say, though, before Mother's last
whitened tress is wound up on her finger and put away in a little Altman
box at the back of her right-hand bureau drawer, that I keep things
pretty well arranged on the different shelves and in the little drawers,
my best clothes being left in my wardrobe trunk, but my orderliness
(so-called) is due to no virtue of my own, but to the fact that I never
wear anything but my blue serge dress, my old blue coat, heavy
underwear, old tan boots and rubbers--never, except during giddy
interregna of the old "battleship gray." Always put on in the morning
what you took off the night before, is my sine qua non--which doesn't
make any sense, but you know what I mean.
For chairs, I have one armchair of imitation red leather, which is stiff
and smooth and cold, but when I cover it over with my two sweaters to
take the edge off, as it were, it does very well. Then there are two
little chairs made so that you sit on them diagonally,--I've always
thought them an abomination,--but I never sit in them, just spread my
clothes out on them at night. Then I have a small straight chair which
goes with the little table that serves as desk.
My rugs--Heaven save the name!--are three irregular strips of
carpet--one red (a little purpler than the chair) with navy-blue
fleurs-de-lys (you will remember that the wallpaper is pink and gold);
the other two, gray in background, with a design which would seem to be
conventionalized lyre-birds and sculpins sparring in a whirlpool. It
takes the two strips to show the pattern--perhaps it is the
great-grandchild of a gobelin nightmare.
I have no place for my books. Indeed, I didn't have any books when I
started out, except my dictionaries, but Mrs. Bigelow has left me ten
Baedekers, and any number of books and magazines have been lent me. I
stack them up on the piano, but it is very untidy.
I have a little "cabinet" with a wash-bowl and running water, and I have
squeezed my trunk in, too. I don't mind being cramped, but it is fierce
to invite any one in to take tea. Of course, if I had a divan or folding
sofa instead of the Royal Couch, things would be simple. I have thought
it over, and have hesitated less on account of the expense of buying one
than the forfeiture of my one real source of comfort. I had Mrs. Bigelow
and Mrs. Shurtleff and Miss Curtis and Miss Sturgis in one day for tea,
and I had to sit on the bed and practically entertain through the bars.
Mrs. Shurtleff is very anxious for me to get a sofa,--it's just
impossible, of course, to let any of the Ambulance men come to call
here,--but I don't know. I may get a little hanging bookcase. Just try,
yourself, living without a bureau, a desk, a bookcase, or a rug, and see
how screaming it is. This last week, I spent most of the time I was in
the house sitting on a little hassock with my back to the radiator. It
has been bitter cold, and we had three centimeters of snow, and there is
hardly any coal. Mme. H---- doesn't turn on the electricity in the
morning, and turns it off at 10.45 at night, and the heat goes off about
8.30, and we can't have fires in our rooms, and it is freezing. When I
even mention these little inconveniences, I remind myself of the picture
that came out in "Punch" about two years ago: a silly ass reading the
newspaper and saying, "They've stopped the cinemas at Brighton, by Jove!
That does bring the war home to one!" You should hear what my boys write
to me about the cold in the trenches.
Now for the wonder in my ménage--I have a piano. One day I left the
house determined to get a mouth-organ if nothing else,--I had whistled
and sung quite enough,--and I was such a pest in other people's houses,
when I discovered their pianos, that I decided to do something
desperate. I found a little piano-store on rue Denfert-Rochereau, with a
little upright, and a darling blind piano-maker and his worried little
wife--everything little. When I found that the upright (with brass
candle-brackets) would be mine to command for twelve francs a month, I
said, "Have it charged and sent," in my best Lord & Taylor style.
Well, it came. It came the next morning when I was still in bed, and I
had to crawl into my wardrobe trunk while it was being installed. When
the heavy footsteps had echoed down the hall, I sprang forward like any
Eurydice, in my dollar-ninety-eight robe de nuit. I played and played,
and was a little late to the Vestiaire that morning. I had a long hard
day that day, and almost forgot my new treasure until after dinner, when
I sat down on the piano-stool. I was casting about for some music--any
music--to play, when Mlle. Germain, a French girl here, came in and
offered a copy of the Beethoven Symphonies. I struck up the Fifth, and,
believe me, it was like solid ground beneath my feet. Since then I have
eaten up all five--it's only the first book that she has. We went to a
concert given in a little room (I thought it was a bar when I first went
in,--marble-topped tables and men smoking), but there was no symphony. I
haven't had time to go to another lately.
In spite of remembering the Steinway at home, you can imagine how happy
I am with my little piano, even if it does come up barely to my hip. It
is usually out of tune, and is very painful, but the little blind man
comes with his wife and tunes it, and I couldn't send it back. I play
with a bicycle face my whole repertoire;--but I tell you I'm gay, and
I've learned to watch out at the end of the F major étude not to crack
my elbow against the foot of the bed, for I find that my bed gives out a
metallic sound when rapped sharply with a bone. I stick my umbrella into
the brass handle at the side of the piano, and then I have a "piano à
queue"! After a few hours of reading Beethoven, Mlle. Germain and I get
out a piece of French gâteau from the armoire and cut off a couple of
slices with my shoe-horn, and sit around in our pajamas and discuss
music and education and politics--and our complexions. All too soon the
lights go out on us, and she says, "Bon soir, chère Mademoiselle," and
goes off down the hall by the light of her last cigarette. Oh, we do
have good times!
I must tell you about the maids, for they are no inconsiderable part of
my days. There are two femmes de chambre, both small, and dark, and very
young. I was reading in my room one night after I had been here about a
week, when Mélanie came to turn down my bed. I, thinking to turn my
French on any victim, started to ask her questions about where her home
was, etc. She told me that she and Maria were both from the
North--Pas-de-Calais--and that they had had to come to Paris to work
after their husbands had been killed early in the war.
"Husbands!" I said. "Don't tell me you're married?"
"Mais si, Mademoiselle,--Maria has a little boy and I have a little
girl,--they're both three years old. They live with their grandmothers
back home. We can see them only once a year!"
I simply couldn't believe it. Why, those two are perfect kids
themselves--little and rosy-cheeked, scared to death of Mme. H----, but
often giggling apart in corners.
No one giggles, I can tell you, when you mention the war, and it's only
because they've been blessed with sunny natures that they can ever seem
light-hearted. Their children, being in the war zone, seem a thousand
miles away from them, because, even if Mélanie and Maria could afford
the trip oftener, they couldn't get the military permit to go through
more than once a year. They can't earn anything in the invaded district,
and Heaven knows Paris is the worst place to move the whole family to,
who are now fairly well off in the country. So here they are, Mélanie
and Maria, working their legs off, doing all the chamber work, waiting
on table and odd jobs for fourteen people--for the princely sum of six
dollars a month and tips. Louise, the cook, is Mélanie's aunt, a jolly
soul, and one fine cook. She lets me come into the kitchen any time, and
gives me a hot apple fritter or some grilled carrots. I found it was
customary to give ten francs for the three maids to divide among them
each month--three francs apiece--sixty cents for a month's hard labor. I
gave them twelve francs, and they were tickled to death. Then through
the Vestiaire I got some warm things for Mélanie's and Maria's children
for Christmas--a coat and dress for the little girl, and a doll and a
purse filled with chocolate money covered with tinfoil (the kind Father
used to enchant me with in East Orange days--he's had to keep following
it up, poor dear). Then for the little boy a coat and tiny trousers and
blouse and necktie, and tin soldiers and candy. Louise has a little
niece to whom I sent a dress and a darling doll's tea-set--I used to
have a set like it for my big Jean. Well, I'm sure the kids were
pleased, and I know that the mothers have been beaming ever since.
Mélanie puts a hot-water bottle in my bed every night now.
In the morning it is very dark, and I am correspondingly sleepy. She
knocks at my door and says, "Sept heures et demie. Mademoiselle,--la
journée commence," and I turn over and in desperation sing (like Charles
Woody), "Ferme la fenêtre, pour l'amour de Dieu!" Then I get up in the
cold and light my candle--Madame won't turn on the electricity in the
morning--and the day does commence. At night the light goes off at
eleven, so I not only dress by yellow candle-light, but write by it
also--as I'm doing now.
The coal situation is terrific. For the last few days we've had no heat
and no fires. It is just like out-of-doors in my room, and I sit in my
fur coat and comforter all the time. It rains endlessly. I never thought
that depression from mere weather could get me, but when you don't see
the sun for four weeks, the grayness gets inside of you. It gets dark at
about half-past three or quarter of four. The other day I was walking
down the Avenue de l'Opéra, and noticed that it was ten minutes past
four. There was another clock beside the one I was looking at, which
said quarter past eleven--New York time. It gave me a sort of a start,
and I said right out loud, "Not even hungry for lunch yet."
December 26.
Great Heavens! I started this ten days ago, and stopped because I had no
more paper--now it's after Christmas, and I have so much more to say,
and so many, many things to thank you all for. We were all electrified
at Father's cable about the Ford. Did any girl ever have such a good
father! I will write him at once! Then the "New Republic," and Mother's
letter, and yours. Please write me about the things that you alone can
tell me. Your letter was so fine the way it referred to what I had said
before, and so gave me an idea what I had written and what you had
thought of it. I'm certain you think I'm bad about writing--I will try
to do better.
My Christmas was a very pleasant one. On Saturday the 23d I helped trim
the tree and do up packages at one of the smaller hospitals here. It was
Mrs. Lane who asked me to help, a charming American woman whose husband
is head of the hospital. He had been called to the front by the illness
of their son, one of the American Ambulance men near Verdun. Sunday
night I went to the tree celebration, and it was a great experience. In
the first place, the hospital is in an old French private
mansion--hôtel, as they call it--and is quite a gorgeous place. What was
once the salon was filled with convalescents, all well enough to be in
uniform. At one end was the tree, the stage, and a piano, and at the
other end we guests sat. All in between was a mass of soldiers in Joffre
blue, laughing and jostling one another, expectant as children. There
were a few musical numbers, and then a playlet with songs. I happened to
be sitting by the mother of the girl in the playlet, and we had a
beautiful time together. The girl was lovely, and how the men clapped
and cheered!
Then there were speeches, and the tree was lighted. Before the presents
were given out, the "Marseillaise" was sung. I hadn't heard any singing
here,--men together especially,--and to see them all facing the tree
with the light on their faces, many of them pale, some bandaged, singing
with their whole hearts, it was too much for me. Some had only one leg
to stand on, and had their arms around the next fellows' necks, some
couldn't see, and looked so alone. I wouldn't let any one see the tears
in my eyes, for tears seemed to be their last thought.
It was very gay when the bags were distributed. Each man got some
bonbons and some trifle, and pieces of holly and mistletoe, and there
were snappers and caps, and things raffled off, and more speeches. The
evening ended with "Vive la France!" and "Joyeux Noël," and again, "Vive
la France!" I shall never forget it.
Love, and Happy New Year.
ESTHER.
VI
FROM MARJORIE
73 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea (January 4, 1917).
DEAREST DADDY:--
I have been having a delightful time--have seen a good many of the
sights, and have been to the theater. The houses are pretty good, not
crammed, but better than the average house has been in Boston for the
last two years. The pit is always full. The plays are frightfully
long-drawn-out, and I can't help thinking all the time that an American
audience would never endure them, but they are bright and beautifully
staged, which surprised me. We went to the Battle of the Somme pictures,
and enjoyed them very much, if one can use the word "enjoy" for such
interesting but harrowing pictures. There was a very small house, but
they were charging regular theater prices, and the pictures have been
here for a long time. The opera was good, and was particularly
interesting to us, for Mr. Julius Harrison, who conducted, is a friend
of the Smiths. It did seem strange to me to have them sing in English,
and once in a while an awful bit of Cockney would get in, such as in
"Cavalleria," the fiery Alfio, in his rage at discovering his wife's
infidelity, gave a wild leap on the stage and shrieked, "It's strienge,
it's straeynge." That is as near to the spelling as I can get. There was
a small but appreciative audience, and again the pit was crammed
full--Tommies and their girls.