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The Lady of the Decoration by [pseud.] Frances Little
page 100 of 119 (84%)
opera bonnet for Susie Damn.



KYOTO, December, 1904.


You are not any more surprised to hear from me in Kyoto than I am to
be here. One of the teachers here, a great big-hearted splendid woman,
knowing that I was interested in the sick soldiers, asked me to come
up for a week and help the Red Cross nurses. For six days we have met
all the trains, and given hot tea, and books to both the men who were
going to the front and to those who were being brought home. We work
side by side with Buddhist priests, ladies of rank, and coolies,
serving from one to four hundred men in fifteen minutes! You never saw
such a scrimmage, everybody works like mad while the train stops, and
the wild "Banzais" that greet us as the men catch sight of the hot
tea, show us how welcome it is.

But the sights, Mate dear, are enough to break one's heart. I have
seen good-byes, and partings until I haven't an emotion left! One man
I talked with was going back for the fourth time having been wounded
and sent home again and again; his wife never took her eyes from his
face until the train pulled out, and the smile with which she sent him
away was more heart rending than any tears I ever saw.

Then I have been touched by an old man and his wife who for four days
have met every train to tell their only son good-bye. They are so
feeble that they have to be helped up and down the steps and as each
train comes and goes and their boy is not on board, they totter hand
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