one is an ordinary mortal--not a title, I mean. The houses have lots of
personality, and make me think of Beacon Hill all the time. It is fun to
compare them with the Boston houses and see just what the Americans have
copied and what they ignored. I love the plumbing here; it is so very
informal--the way it is all on the outside and usually down the front of
the houses. One bath to seven rooms is the average, I gather. And that
one bath is usually in the end of a hallway, or in a closet.
The weather is behaving in a true London fashion--was at first foggy, as
I told you, and now is absurdly warm. I have not suffered from the cold,
therefore, so far, and am waiting for my trials to begin in Paris along
that line. I have been so lucky this far on my trip that I suppose
something awful will soon happen to me, but I can look back to these
weeks of comfort and good food when I starve on the Channel ship!
You will be disappointed to know that they have not done away with the
dogs here, and that there are quantities of them everywhere! There is a
dear little puppy in this household, which makes me think of how you
would enjoy her, if only you were here.
I have so far had no difficulty in arranging affairs, and now with Dr.
Page behind me, I think I shall be in Paris soon. I have found my
various letters and papers valuable, and have been impressed with the
courteous efficient officers I have met. I can very well see, though,
that it would be impossible to get anywhere unless one knew exactly what
one wanted to do, and where one was going, and had good evidence to back
up one's statement.
Your loving daughter,
MARJE.
VII
FROM ESTHER
Paris, January 24, 1917.
DEAREST FATHER:--
I dashed off a few words to you almost in my sleep the other night to be
sure of having something on the Espagne. Sometimes I don't feel like
getting out a bolt of wrapping-paper and beginning at the extreme end,
and that was one of the times. I did manage to jot down a few theme
sentences, however, and now I will proceed to talk.
To say that we are overjoyed with the Ford is to put it mildly! It is
the ideal car and body for our purposes and we all feel much indebted to
you, Father dear, and to Mr. Migel. Two perfectly lovely letters are on
their way to him from Mrs. Shurtleff and me respectively. Mrs. Shurtleff
would like to know the name of the dealer who gave the thirty-three
dollars discount, to write him a note also. As for lettering, we shall
have time to think of the flourishes when the car arrives. I am glad you
didn't bother about it as Mrs. Shurtleff wants to have an American flag
underneath the name to let the French people see that it is an American
work.
The American mail has just come, and such a dandy lot has come my way! I
am sorry you have worried about the box sent November 15th; I
acknowledged it last time, but I will say again how much appreciated
everything was. The December 9th one came Thursday January 18th, which
was very quick, as we count on six weeks for cases. I was as excited as
a colt and went at it with hammer and tongs--in this case an old rusty
axe and a pair of pinchers--and pulled forth joyfully the shirts, coats,
and all the things. Certainly Mother does send jim-dandy things. I shed
a few sentimental tears on the name-tag on Mr. Hathaway's coat and more
tears when I didn't find my Oxford book or any peanut brittle! But the
box did contribute something to me personally which was of the greatest
value, which will appear later in my narrative.
It is touching to hear the refugees tell what they have tried to save
from their old homes. If they have been driven to Paris by bombardment
they have perhaps been able to save a couple of mattresses (so handy to
travel with) or some blankets; but for the ones who have been in the
invaded country and have only recently been repatriated by the Germans,
they rarely arrive here with anything but the clothes on their backs.
The trip is eventful enough, usually, in trying merely to keep life
going without juggling with furniture and extra clothes. They are sent
from Northern France into Germany through Switzerland to Southern France
and thence up to Paris. The traveling is not de luxe as you may imagine
and takes many hours--days even. To get a vivid idea of the journey you
should have it described by an old dame of seventy summers who has never
set foot out of her native village before. She will sit with ten or
twenty knitting needles flashing in her lap, her white cap tied neatly
under her chin and rattle on in toothless but fluent patois reciting a
series of experiences that you wonder she could ever have survived.
Perhaps you can picture for yourself the effect of taking any old
country woman that we know through the Dolomites under a hostile guard.
Highest praises are always given to the Swiss. They have given warm
clothes, warm food, and a warm welcome to countless refugees that I have
talked to.
What you say about the feeling in America, that France at the end of the
war will be safe from the encroachment of other nations for generations,
sounds encouraging, but does that imply that the end of the war is a
long way off? I have been astonished ever since coming to France to find
the general expectation is for an early termination of hostilities--very
early, this spring or next fall at the latest. My opinion was formed
almost entirely by the "New Republic" and the Frank H. Simonds articles
in the "Atlantic" and in the "Tribune," so that I considered the fall of
1918 to be the most logical time to hope for the end. What the Allies
have to do seems still well-nigh insurmountable, but to my surprise,
young and old, rich or poor, wise or foolish, seem sure that 1917 is,
indeed, l'année de la victoire et de la paix. I can't tell whether it is
because they wish it so hard or because to people who have seen and are
living among the results of such tremendous desolation, it seems
impossible for it to go on longer.
Please send more "New York Tribunes." You have no idea how they are
appreciated by all of us. I took the ones Mother sent over to the
Shurtleffs, then over to Mrs. Houpt's, then up to Miss Dorr's when I
went to tea one afternoon, and when I asked some people in they were the
features of my party. The W. E. Hill drawing of "scenes in the hat
department" brought down the house.
We haven't seen such good war pictures over here at all, and the
pictures of the stage and society and art exhibitions, etc., are
fascinating. It is wonderful to know that such things are going on. Then
for news, the regular "Tribune" was gobbled up. We have only these punk
French papers and the punker "New York Paris Herald," which costs three
cents and consists of one sheet of four pages--of nothing. We read,
"Quiet night on the front"; "Wilson presses investigation of ----, may
write note to Germany"; and accounts of the London dog shows morning
after morning. Take pity. And especially the magazine sections of the
"Sunday Tribune," and more stuff by Hill!
Now for my Hymn of Hate which is in this case a Hymn of Heat. I am cold.
This is a theme which has been elaborated in every degree of variation,
and amplification since December 23, 1916, I think. I wrote you about
that time that our steam heating had died suddenly and ingloriously, so
it was with relief that I read in your letters of this morning no trace
of worry about how I was managing to exist. All the old wiseacres that I
meet, and this includes Mrs. Shurtleff, shake their heads and say, "If
your father and mother knew how you were living, what would they say?"
and I think to myself, "They would probably think it was jolly well good
for me--and that it was a terrific joke."
As I said, the Chauffage Central didn't marché on December 23, and
hadn't marché-d since. The proprietor says he can't get any coal, and
this may be true enough, for the Seine has been rising and rising, and a
few days ago was higher than at any time since the floods of '08. Great
quantities of coal are at Rouen, but the transports can't get under the
bridges to bring it to Paris, with the river so high. It seems that
almost every one's proprietor was far-seeing enough to get in a huge
supply last summer, but ours was probably strolling along some sunny
beach and never gave the question a thought. To-day Mme. H---- heard
that he has been laying in coal at his residence this last week, and
still won't provide for us. The only indemnity he can be made to give is
five francs a day per apartment, and it costs about two francs per room
a day to keep heated by coal or wood. The five francs pays to keep alive
the stove that Madame has had put in the dining-room and for the extra
gas she uses in cooking.
And where do we come in, we pensionnaires? We buy our own coal or wood
or petrol stove, as the case may be, and it's very hard on some of us,
particularly Mlle. Germain. And on top of all this, we freeze.
I thought at first that it would be lovely to have a darling little fire
every night, and I never thought what it would be to get hold of darling
little logs and then make them burn. For a week or two it was more or
less fun and very war-y, but the drawbacks begin to pall after weeks.
You see the fireplace is only nineteen inches wide (I measured it with
the little blue tape measure Mother gave me), and the logs I burn are
about twelve inches long. So at best the heat penetrates to a maximum
distance of five feet. And finally the logs they send me are wet--and
you can't get kindling. If you could imagine the amount of time I have
spent kneeling in my fur coat before the miniature fireplace trying to
light a couple of wet logs with an old copy of the "Herald," you would
certainly smile. Here's where the cases from home came in strong. Our
good helper Agatha and I split them into kindling and made two bundles
and I carried them home. It is typical of the Latin Quarter that no one
gave me a second glance as I strode along the street with a big bundle
of wood on each shoulder. They burned as nothing ever has burned in my
sight before. I told Mrs. Shurtleff that I was going to write next for a
case of kindling from America!
Fortunately it is not as cold here as it is in New York, although this
confounded thermometer means so little to me that I can't tell you just
what it is. Some days it's zero, others it's 2, and in the house it's 5
or 7, and it feels just as cold as that would be on good old Fahrenheit.
It's just as cozy to live in my room these days as it would be to live
in a tent out on Place Denfert-Rochereau. I can see my breath if I care
to look, but I'm tired of it as we approach the fifth week. I wear my
fur coat most of the time and sometimes my hat, and settle down on a
hassock in front of whatever fire there is, to read. I have tried
wearing gloves, but the pages stick so that I lose in temper what I make
up for in warmth. To play my piano is like playing on icicles. But I
play just the same and then go into the kitchen to warm my hands. I have
Louise put some of my wet logs on the back of the stove when she has
been cooking and it has dried them out fairly successfully.
You can imagine what getting up in the morning is like. If it weren't
immodest I'd like to dress out on my balcony, for I think the
temperature would be an improvement. The very walls of the room are
cold, they haven't been heated for so long. And as for touching the bare
floor or a door-handle! Really, had I the tongue of Greeks or Jews or
possibly Siberians or Esquimaux I would describe our home atmosphere,
which makes itself felt as it whistles under the doors and around the
windows--but not unless. But I wouldn't think of moving even if I knew
of any warm place to go. The people are just like a big family and I'll
never desert Mme. H. ---- Micawber. It will be lovely in the spring.
And after all I love my little fire "that goes in and out with me." And
I feel so settled here. I never wake up in the morning any more and say
like the bewildered little darky, "Whar me!" and when I open the front
door at night I feel that I never really belonged anywhere else.
What I look forward to all day is getting into bed at night. I slide in
between the icy sheets and find the tin bed-warmer that Olive gave me,
and then way down at the bottom a hot, squashy, hot-water bag. I tuck
the comforter in tight, and pull my fur coat up over my head and stay
there suffocated until I'm sure my nose is warm enough not to keep me
awake, then I uncover cautiously and slowly go off to sleep. When once
asleep nothing could wake me up--not the Allies victorious or the
Heavenly trump. But before I go to sleep I have a fine chance to think
over happy things of the past and I do love it. I think of what fun we
used to have at Northampton, especially those two years at the Lodge. It
seems too wonderful to be true now, to think of living not merely with
people who were girls your own age and spoke English, but your very own
best friends that you would pick out from all the world. All living
together under one roof!
When it was cold like this there was skating on Paradise, and after
giving three looks at our history in the evening, a bunch of us would go
down to the boat-house and put on our skates and go out and skate by the
electric light and moonlight combined. Then when we were frozen, we'd
come in and warm ourselves by the huge fireplace, leave our skates, and
go down town to Kingsley's for some hot chocolate and whipped cream.
When the moon shone full on the white snow it gave the luster of midday
all right. I can just hear how our footsteps crunched and the snow
squeaked, it was so cold. As we'd be drinking our chocolate some one
would look down the street at the town clock and cry, "It's quarter of
ten!!" and we'd dash out of the place and run like mad up Main Street,
turn to the left at the watering-trough, up West Street, down Arnold
Avenue, and pound up the kitchen steps of the Lodge. Usually we got
there just as the college clock was striking ten. We'd fly up the back
stairs and undress in the dark and jump into bed. "Nothing on our minds
but our hair!" It seems so long ago.
This letter is going very slowly, I'm afraid. If I could only write with
my left hand, it wouldn't be so bad, but I have to keep stopping to put
my right on the hot-water bag to keep my fingers going. They look like
carrots, anyway. Please tell Aunt Esther that I have become a mad
devotee of hot water as a beverage. This ought to put new life into her,
for I have always felt that she never quite recovered from the obstinate
way I used to take the pitcher of hot water, regularly delivered to me
on a tray flanked conspicuously with a cup and saucer, dump the contents
into the bowl and bathe comfortably and leisurely. This at the age of
eight. Now all is changed. I drink what is brought piping hot for me to
use to bathe in, and bathe in the dispirited contents of my
night-blooming hot-water bag. Such is age--and Paris.
Now the results of this constant warfare between man and the elements
are twofold. I first might say that my flesh is brilliantly branded by
the various applications, too arduously embraced, so that it looks as
though giant postage stamps had been applied promiscuously over my huge
gaunt frame. Secondly, I am a bit done up. With my room fairly
uninhabitable it has been against nature to refuse as many of the
cordial (and warm) invitations that have been given me as would have
been consistent with wisdom--certainly ag'in' my nature, and I have
tired myself with trotting back and forth from one fireside to another
on top of the new forms of work that I have been adapting myself to. I
have gone out a great deal to tea, and sometimes in the evening, too,
and haven't rested very much. Yet it's little comfort to come home and
rest when you're shivering!
However, I'm not a bit discouraged about anything--one must find out
one's strength somehow--and please don't worry. By the time you get this
I shall probably be blooming.
I heard "Faust," with Mary Aiken and her mother a week ago Saturday--the
only time since Mother took Olive and Franklin and me eleven years ago,
when it was my first opera. It was glorious! I seemed to know it all and
what I didn't know was lovely too. We had dandy seats in the
parterre--only seven francs seventy centimes, the seventy centimes being
a tax for the poor, imposed on all theater and opera seats. Do you
remember when we used to struggle and squeak through "Anges purs, anges
radieux"?--where it goes up a key each time? I find myself singing,
"Salut, demeure chaste et pure," as I turn my chilled footsteps toward
Place Denfert-Rochereau sometimes--so chaste and pure that there is no
sybaritic allurement even in the fireplace.
I must tell you how wonderful that child Gile Davies has been to me.
Every week since I've been gone I've had a note, sometimes a long letter
from her; and not a word did I write until Christmas-time. To cap the
climax, I received a package a day or two ago--a Christmas present. It
was a baby blue satin handkerchief bag that she had made herself, with a
handkerchief and a sachet inside. It seemed great to see anything so
pretty and useless after so many flannel waists and boots and trousers
and all the homely things that are so indispensable. In the bottom of
the box was the most precious of all--an enlargement of the picture
Martha took of Gile one morning when she was putting up the flag at
Bailey's--Gile in a middy blouse with the sun full on her, just turning
to smile as she's pulling the ropes; and Harpswell and the Sound in the
distance.
When I found that, on top of the handkerchief and the sachet, I just
opened the bag and risked all the blue satin lining by crying into it.
Oh, I never saw anything look so sweet.
I think I was even gladder about what you wrote of wearing my circle
scarf-pin for my sake, than about the Ford; though maybe it's wicked. I
can forgive with abandon, and picture with tenderness the cruel and
unusual neckties in which it probably nestles. My one fear is that you
may waste too much affection on me when I'm away, thinking that I have
changed. I haven't at all, malheureusement. It's just that blessings
apparently seem to brighten immediately after taking flight. I never do
anything wonderful at all. I sometimes get tired clear through and wish
there were some one to manage things for me--some one to take me
out--some one else to buy the tickets--some one else to order the
taxi--some one else to decide what to do. I just long to get all dressed
up and go out somewhere and see people in evening clothes. Sometimes I
feel that I'd rather put on a pair of long white gloves than put off the
old man! You can see from that.
Remember that if I'm your little tin-god-on-wheels, you're mine, and I
think of you every day, no matter what I'm doing, and send you oceans of
love, not only for all your kindness to me and others, but because I
love you, anyway.
Good-night to you all,
ESTHER.
Dear Father, don't worry, I'm going to get a stove.
VIII
FROM MARJORIE
Villa des Dames,
79 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Paris.
(January 25, 1917.)
DEAR DADDY:--
Well, the impossible has happened! I am plunged into reckless expense
after having restrained myself for over a week. Yesterday afternoon I
came back from the Vestiaire with a great deal of typewriting to do. I
found my room a little colder than usual,--which was too much,--so I
just sailed downstairs and demanded a fire! Such excitement you never
saw. The head of the hôtel and his wife both came tearing up and wanted
to know if "Mademoiselle was cold"--with the marvelous steam heat going
full tilt(!). I said yes, I was cold, and that I must have a fire at
once--so I got it. They were most apologetic because it had to be a wood
fire--but I was delighted. I then lit my candles--ordered tea, and after
getting all warm inside, just sat down and toasted myself! You don't
know, you can't possibly imagine, the divine joy I got from that little
fire of only two pieces of wood at a time! I did not tell Miss W. that I
had it for a while, because I wanted to enjoy it all by myself. When I
did tell her, she was as thrilled as I was, and we two just sat over it
and nursed it all afternoon and evening! I do not know how much it cost
me,--I didn't dare ask,--but I do know that for the first time since I
left my room in the Belmont I have been truly so warm that I am
comfortable! I have had it again this afternoon, and am now sitting by
its dying embers before I go to bed. Miss W. is sitting opposite me
reading. We are both--wonder of wonders--sweaterless. You do not know
what all this means, but I can assure you after I worked in two sweaters
and a coat, with my fur coat around my knees, and stopping to blow on my
fingers every few minutes, I decided that it was plain silly, and that I
would move my table, which was put in the fireplace,--to suggest, as it
were, that there is now no need of a fire,--and investigate the chimney.
I was so pleased to find that it is a peach of a one, and draws
beautifully. By strict economy I have only used one basket of wood in
the two days, and that cannot be very, very extravagant. Also I am going
out to buy my own wood tomorrow, and bring it home under my arm, for I
know it will be less than what they will charge me here,--so picture me
as wandering through the streets with a load of wood under my arm in
true Parisian fashion! But also picture my once barely livable room
turned into a positive hot-bed--it must be 68° in here, I am sure! I may
have to give up going in the underground and have to walk
everywhere,--it will be so expensive,--but I will always from now on
have a warm room to work and rest in! You are probably saying, "What a
lot of fuss over a fire," but you do not know how I have been trying to
figure out just how much I could stand and how much I could not. I do
not mind working at the Vestiaire in the cold, for I am always active;
but I have got to have it decently warm when I sit and type for three
hours at a time, and I am so thrilled to find that this comparatively
small fireplace has such very excellent effects.
I can tell you little Marje is so grateful to Sears-Roebuck Company that
she is seriously considering putting them in her prayers! I sleep under
Sears-Roebuck blankets, wear their flannel nighties and underclothes,
and use their pen, paper, and pins! The French idea of blankets seems to
be something as heavy as possible, with the least possible warmth in it!
Miss W. says that I am to tell you that I already look better than when
I first came. I have a wonderful appetite, and only hope that I will not
by any unfortunate chance grow out of any of my warm things!
When I get home I expect to put your Miss K. out of the office, I am
becoming such an expert typist! It is rather amusing to come way over
here and type so much, but just now that and "visiting" is what they
need most. I expect to work after a time on the tuberculosis cases under
a very nice elderly gentleman whose name I cannot remember, and also to
drive the auto a good deal. Esther Root, one of the workers, has just
had a car (Ford, of course) sent to her by her father, and when it
arrives we are going to Bordeaux to drive it up here. Won't that be
great? We hope it will get here soon, for we need it frightfully. There
is so much to be carried around--furniture and such--when we move a
family, which we do quite often.
Oh, I do hope that Mother is not going to worry too much about me, now
that I am at last in such good hands. I never saw a much nicer, kinder,
more thoughtful set of workers. Now that I shall be warm, and I am very
well fed, indeed, I am as happy as can be. I think that I shall work in
to be fairly useful after a time.
We keep hearing rumors of sugar-cards, no more bakeries open, and all
sorts of things. I shall be interested to see if the new laws really
come into effect the first of February. Even if they do, I do not
believe that it will affect us very much. As usual, the poorer people
will have the hardest part of it to bear.