women of all ages.

Two hundred or more of them had been in the hands of the Germans for
two years, and when a few days before it came time for the Germans to
open their second big Somme drive, they had driven these women and
little girls out ahead of them, saying: "Go back to the French now, we
do not want you any longer."

For two days and nights these refugees had tramped the roads of France
without food, many of them carrying little babies in their arms, all of
them weary and sick near unto death.

The little children gripped your heart. As you handed them food and
saw their little claw-like hands clutch at it, and as you saw them
devour it like starved animals, the while clutching at a dirty but
much-loved doll, somehow you could not see for the mists in your eyes
as you walked up and down the narrow aisles of that crowded basement
pouring out chocolate and handing out food. The things you saw every
minute in that room hung a veil over your eyes, and you were afraid all
the while that in your blinding of tears you would step on some
sleeping, starving child, who was lying on the cold floor in utter
exhaustion, regardless of food.

One woman especially attracted me. I noticed her time and time again
as I walked past her with food. She was lying on her back on the
floor, with nothing under her, her arms thrown back over her head, a
child in her arms, or rather, lying against her breast asleep. She
looked like an educated, cultured woman. Her features were beautiful,
but she looked as if she had passed through death and hell in
suffering. I asked her several times as I passed by if she wouldn't