the midst of the most terrible suffering. But in view of the bigger
things of life, the tremendous struggle going on so near, the agony of
the sick and wounded, the suffering of the women and children, my own
little qualms get lost in the shuffle, and my one consuming desire is
to help in any way I can.

Last week we took in addition to the "wind bag" two big baskets of
flowers to give to the sickest ones. Oh! If I could only make you know
what flowers mean to them! Men too sick to raise their heads and often
dying, will stretch out their hands for a flower, and be perfectly
content to hold it in their fingers. One soldier with both arms gone
asked me for a flower just as I had emptied my basket. I would have
given my month's salary for one rose, but all I had was a withered
little pansy. He motioned for me to give him that and asked me to put
it in a broken bottle hanging on the wall, so he could see it.

If I didn't get away from it all once in a while, I don't believe I
could stand it. Yesterday was the Emperor's birthday and we had a
holiday. I took several of the girls and went for a long ramble in the
country. The fields were a brilliant yellow, rich and heavy with the
unharvested grain. The mountains were deeply purple, and the sky so
tenderly blue, that the whole world just seemed a place to be glad and
happy in. Fall in Japan does not suggest death and decay, but rather
the drifting into a beautiful rest, where dreams can be dreamed and
the world forgot. Such a spirit of peace enveloped the whole scene,
that it was hard to realize that the long line of black objects on the
distant road were stretchers bearing the sick and wounded from the
transports to the hospitals.