Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1918 — FEEDING REFUGEES ON FRENCH TRAIN [ARTICLE]

FEEDING REFUGEES ON FRENCH TRAIN

American Red Cross in Paris Quickly Answers Emergency Call. £ / HOMELESS LftUGH MID JOKE No Bitterness*, No Complaint, No Deopair Among People, Many of Whom Were Refugees for Second and Third Time.

Paris. —“A thousand refugees from the east of Amiens will pass through Adheres at seven o’clock tonight. They will not have had any supper, some of them may not have had any lunch. There is no food there and no facilities for feeding them. Can you help us?” That was the telephone message, from the French tainlster of the., interior which came to the American Red Cross at noon one day during the •German drive on Amiens, and the answer was “Yes. Emergency messages are no surprise to us these days.” The food was ordered out of the •warehouses and a score of volunteers rounded up. They started at six o’clock the same ■evening.. One five-ton truck, loaded with tinned beef and condensed milk, figs, prunes, chocolate and heaps of huge loaves of war bread; two carloads of midnight volunteers, stenographers, bureau chiefs, drivers and canteen workers set out on their way to bring help to the homeless refugees. They rolled out through the residential district of Paris, out past the fortifications, bumped through grimy factory suburbs and on into the open country where the level plains stretch off into infinite distance, broken only by interminable rows of slim poplars. Then suddenly without warning, there emerged from the forest into a black smudge of railway tracks, cinders, flat-cars, passenger cars, sheds, platforms, warehouses, cranes — Acheres. It was the junction point, -where the thousands of refugees were to stop for half an hour. Saluted With One Arm. Lieutenant M met us there, saluted stiffly with his one arm, and did the honors of the station. A group of weary, muddy “permissionaires,” most of them over forty, just back from the Champagne front, were routed out

to help us establish our tables on the cinders between the tracks, and pile the food where it could conveniently be passed into, the train. They unloaded bread, scraped cheese, opened tins of “bully beef,” knocked the tops off the boxes of figs and prunes and made plans to feed a thousand people in half ah hour. But somewhere off in the silent country the train, packed full of exiles, was standing on a side track. It was after two in the morning when the long train with its 28 carriages filled with refugees came into Acheres. A few windows were opened; tired faces looked out and voices asked, uninterestedly, “Where are we?” and were surprised to be told that they were near Parts. The train was on its way. they said to Tulle in the Correze department, in the. south of France. “Will they treat us well there?" an old woman asked and they, fa the full-. ness of their ignorance, not daring to say otherwise, answered “Yes.” It was a short half hour. They carried them bread, they filled the old woman’s apron with figs and prunes, they gave milk to the children, meat to the old men, cheese to everybody. They absorbed cakes of sweet chocolate in a rapid and mysterious manner. Some of them were the much bepetticoated women of Picardy and

some were grizzled old farmers. Others were city folk, obviously not used to third class travel. There were famalies of three generations huddled together on their way—somewhere. Some clutched precious umbrellas, some carried bird cages, some alarm clocks. Some of them had dogs, some had cats. But the pathos of it all was not on the surface.* Some of them quietly told that they were refugees for the second and third time and laughed and joked when they woke up. There was no bitterness, no complaint, no despair. ... Bread Pile Fell Away. The huge pile of bread fell away, the fig boxes wer% emptied, the tins were all handed into the trains. The engine shrieked a shrill French whistle and the train pulled away. The rescuers were in the silence of the night. One of many thousands of refugees had had one dreary midnight meal far from home —one lonely meal out of hundreds, perhaps thousands, before them. A train load of wopnded from the front joggled in ten minutes later. The men nurses carried water through the carriages swiftly and silently. Then the Americans handed out the remnants of their stores of figs and the train slipped away again. Behind them could be heard the dull booming of the barrage guns about Paris, and the visitors knew that another air raid was on. They waited until the barrage stopped, then they headed back through the defenses of the capital. There was a faint light as they rode back through the forest. They could see clumps of yellow daffodils utterly oblivious of war.