Before we went into the wards the physician in charge took us all over
the buildings, showed us where the old bandages were being washed and
cleaned, where the instruments were sharpened and repaired, where the
stretchers and crutches, and "first aid to the injured" satchels were
kept. We were taken through the postoffice, where all the mail comes
and goes from the front. It was touching to see the number of letters
that had been sent home unopened.

Twenty thousand sick soldiers are cared for in Hiroshima, and such
system, such cleanliness and order you have never seen. I have wished
for Jack a thousand times; it would delight his soul to see the skill
and ability of these wonderful little doctors and nurses.



HIROSHIMA, November, 1904.


To-morrow it will be four weeks since I have had any kind of mail from
America. It seems to me that everything has stopped running across the
ocean, even the waves.

I know little these days outside of the kindergarten and the
hospital. The former grows cuter and dearer all the time. It is a
constant inspiration to see the daily development of these cunning
babies. As for the visits to the hospital, they are a self-appointed
task that grows no easier through repetition. You know how I shrink
from seeing pain, and how all my life I have tried to get away from
the disagreeable? Well it is like torture to go day after day into