Chapter I: Winter in Paris

Paris, October 31, 1916.

Here we are, arrived safely, after spending our first night in Bordeaux, and I am staying with Uncle Owen and Marie.

The statue of Alsace-Lorraine in the Place de la Concorde still wears her mourning wreaths, but she holds a French flag in one of her hands.

We went yesterday to see the headquarters of the American Fund for French Wounded at the Alcazar d’Eté. The office is near the Champs Elysées in a lovely place surrounded by trees, and the sun comes pouring into the workrooms.

At present, in the mornings I am to file papers containing requests, and in the afternoons to pack comfort bags. We are to work in shifts of five hours a day each, which doesn’t sound very appalling, but it is quite strenuous.

It makes you realize how near the Germans got to Paris to go out to Neuilly, and see the trenches and barbed wire on the old wall of Paris. We walked there with some Ambulance boys who were on the steamer. They wore their uniforms for the first time, and were tremendously proud of them. Every time they meet an officer, of course they have to salute. They were very shy about it, and when they saw an officer coming, half a block away, they would tell us not to laugh or look at them, and as of course we met about three officers in every block, our conversation was constantly interrupted by saluting. We would be laughing over something, when suddenly a wooden expression would come over the boys’ faces, half a block would be paced in silence, and then a salute like a railroad signal moving up and down would follow, when the conversation would resume its natural flow. These Ambulance boys are probably going to the Argonne section,--one has already gone, and bade us a very cheerful and desperately serious farewell. That section is no joke.

One of the Ambulance boys thought he would see Paris the other day, so he wandered about (really to practice saluting in his uniform). Finally, being tired, he sat down at a table in a café to rest. When he got up to go, he picked up his gloves, and was greeted by a piercing scream from a Frenchwoman near by, who said he was going off with a pair of gloves belonging to an English officer at a table opposite. Neither understood French, but the English officer left, seeing that some kind of row was up, and not wanting to be involved in it. The woman, however, hung on to the American, and yelled for the police. Meanwhile a crowd gathered. A passing voice came out of it,--“There’s one of those Ambulance boys in trouble again.” The policeman asked him for something, probably his “permis de séjour,” and, as he couldn’t understand, he didn’t produce it. Then he and the woman were both hauled off to the police station, where, naturally, he swore that the pair of gloves he had were his own, made in the U. S. A., showed his “permis de séjour,” and was let go at once. When he got home, he found that he had two pairs of gloves!

The Ambulance men certainly do have odd experiences on account of being unable to speak the “lingo.” At Bordeaux, Eliot’s bags failed to get on the train because he didn’t have a ticket, he got one of the few porters, exclaiming, “Vous-me-ici!” and ran for the ticket window. There was a whole line of soldiers buying tickets, but, nothing daunted, he seized the porter by one hand, and rushed down the whole line of soldiers, tipping each one a franc (as he had nothing smaller). They all laughed, and let him get to the window and buy his ticket. He said he was bankrupt from that time on.

Paris, November 30, 1916.

Yesterday in the metro, I saw a common soldier on crutches get into the car. A colonel, with a very careworn face, got up and gave him his seat saying, “It is hard for you to stand, my boy.” The soldier was only a lad, and he blushed and said, “Merci, mon Colonel,” and had a frightful time keeping his balance, while trying to salute. The Colonel held him up while he saluted, and helped him to the seat. When he got off, the car was crowded, and the Colonel helped him to the door and out.

My work has been changed, and I now drive a Ford to do errands about Paris. The car, whose name is “Lizzie,” is painted gray, with red crosses and “Comité Américain pour les Blessés Français” on one side, and “American Fund for French Wounded” on the other. I’ve had her for two days, and take care of her as well as drive her. I also wear a uniform which consists of my leather coat with shoulder straps, marked A. F. F. W., and a blue felt hat with A. F. F. W. on the hatband. Nobody in Paris knows what it means, as the Motor Service of the A. F. F. W. has had uniforms only a week. Hence every one stares, especially as most women in France don’t wear uniforms in the street (one does not even see many uniformed nurses). However, I’ve discovered a way not to be stared at, and that is to stand near the door of the metro, where they take you for a new variety of ticket-woman.

The first time I had Lizzie out I was to be a messenger, and I left her in front of the Alcazar d’Eté while I went to lunch. When I came back, lo! there was a flat tire, and I proceeded to take it off and put in a new inner tube. No sooner had I started to change it, than six soldiers emerged from the atmosphere, in their atmospheric blue uniforms, all asking if they could give me a “coup de main,” and they would not let me put the tire on myself. Then I needed an electric tape, and the lieutenant rushed off to a near-by taxi and got a piece for me. At last I started out, but lo! Lizzie was in a vicious mood, and the tire went flat again in about two feet. I had to take it off again, and again to my aid a French soldier sprang, full armed with a monkey-wrench, from the pavement of the Champs Elysées.

Paris, January 1, 1917.

The night before Christmas, I thought of you sitting about the fire, and hanging up the stockings, but it made me too homesick to think of it.

On Christmas Eve, I went to a canteen party. There was a big room in which were three long tables filled with soldiers,--every kind of soldier, all in their rain-and-sun faded uniforms, for they were going back to the front the next day. When we got there, they were all eating under a ceiling festooned with red, white, and blue, and the entertainment was ready to begin. Various people sang French songs for them, which they politely clapped. Then a woman with a magnificent voice sang a song in French about Christmas night. There was a dead silence, then “Un, deux, trois; un, deux, trois,” and they all clapped in rhythm. It is thrilling to hear, and they do it when especially pleased. They shouted and stamped their feet for more, but they were not to have more from her then. The entertainment went on; Harvard and Yale songs were sung by the Ambulance boys, accompanied by mandolin, guitar, and piano. Those were wildly applauded in the same manner. A Belgian started to sing; he had a fearful voice, but he was good-naturedly clapped and cheered. Then one of the Ambulance boys got up and sang “My Laddie,” and “My Little Gray Home in the West,” in one of the sweetest, truest voices I have ever heard. The poilus listened so intently that you could have heard a pin drop. Of course they couldn’t understand the words, but they loved it, and yelled “bis” and “encore.” When he had sat down, they all began calling something. At first we didn’t know what. Then we realized it was “Tippé-ré-ree” that they wanted, so we all sang it together. The poilus sang, too, though heaven knows how they pronounced the words, or whether they sang in French or Flemish.

After that, we passed candy to them, and every one of them said, “Merci, Mademoiselle.” When I came to one of the side tables, where the seats were against the wall, I handed the bowl to the end man and told him to pass it down. That went very well; they smiled their “Merci, Mademoiselle” across the table to me, until the bowl came to a colored man as black as soot. He took it from the next man, reached it across the table to me, and said, “I want it from your own hands,” so I had to pass it up the rest of the way, leaning across the table!

Then the black man wanted to sing. He sang;--the song was about a Belgian saying good-bye to his relations. A verse was devoted to each--Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Wife, Little Girl, Son, Aunt, Uncle, all listened to with great patience. Each stanza was droned out in a deep, sad voice, while the singer rolled his eyes to the ceiling in a kind of amen at the end. After the “Uncle,” he began on the “Cousins,” and the poilus saw no end. They clapped vociferously, and yelled to him to sit down, which he finally did among cheers, claps, and laughter. When they’d finally got him seated, a young, sensitive-looking French soldier arose. They all shouted, “un camarade--un poilu!” He cleared his throat and began, at first very low and timidly, a song about “La Lune,” and the rest all joined in the chorus. It was quite lovely.

At the end they all stood up and sang the “Marseillaise,” until the welkin rang. Then they shouted, “Vive l’Amérique!” “Vive la France!” and, though no English were there, “Vive l’Angleterre!”

When they went out, we gave them comfort bags to take away, and they went off gloating over their peeps into them.

On Christmas afternoon, Marie and I went to a hospital to distribute comfort bags. All the men were as dressed up as they could be under the circumstances, and were smiling at us from their beds when we came in. We gave each one a bag. They were delighted, especially as the bags came from America, and were particularly nice ones. A good many of the bags contained musical instruments, such as mouth organs. Most of the men didn’t know how to play them, but one poilu did, and I dare say strange and weird sounds were issuing from that ward by morning, for, as one soldier said, “We have plenty of time here to learn.” A good many of the bags had messages in English in them on postal cards. These we translated for them, and they loved them, especially the ones from children. One man had a tiny pink looking-glass in his bag. He considered it a treasure of untold value, and kept picking it up and looking at it, back and front, every few moments. I really don’t know whether he liked the back or the front better. In some of the bags was chewing gum, and as we hadn’t time to take it out, Marie made them a speech, and told them not to swallow it or they would be ill. She said that the Americans chew it for good luck, and then spit it out.

When we went away, the men called “au revoir” after us, and one of the sisters, a tiny lady in a white coiffe, kissed us on both cheeks “to thank you for my poilus.”

Paris, January 6th, 1917.

This week I have done absolutely nothing but lie on my back under Lizzie, or else scrub and arrange her from above. She has a nervous, temperamental disposition, poor dear, and one never can tell what she will do next. She has really been an awful trial to my nerves during this last month, as I have driven her nearly every day, and every day she has done something. There’s nothing I don’t know about 1914 Fords by now. First, her carburetor leaked perpetually for a week,--awful! when gasoline is 3.60 francs for five liters. Neither they, at the Ford place, nor we, at the garage, could find out what the matter was. It seemed to be plain cussedness,--however we changed the carburetor. I wrote you before, that the first day I drove her she had three tire-changing fits,--last week she had another spell of them in the other rear tire. The tires were completely worn out, so we got new ones. You’d think that would be enough, but no, we took her all to pieces and cleaned out the carbon, for the second time in two weeks, and put her together again. She wasn’t a bit grateful, however, and the next day obligingly dropped off her gasoline pipe for me. It had come unsoldered. I must say to her credit that she had the sense to do it in the garage doorway, and not at the Place de l’Opéra or the Champs Elysées or the Arc de Triomphe (why add insult to injury?) or the Faubourg St. Honoré which she had chosen as fitting settings for her other tantrums. However, it took two days to get it soldered on again, as it is almost impossible to find people who can do the job, which takes about fifteen minutes perhaps. Was that enough? No. The next day I took Cousin Bessie to do some errands needed for her trip to the front. Lizzie had fits again. The next day I took her out to the Ford place as oil was leaking through her piston rings, and she went on two cylinders,--which made her motion like that caused by Dummerston “Thank-ye-ma’ams.” They couldn’t mend her till the middle of next week, and I have spent the last two days in painting her outsides, which were completely bare in places. Of course I got under her to paint the rods below, that were all rusty. When the paint fell on my face, I felt like Michael Angelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I also got a lot of it in my hair, which so helps one’s personal appearance!

If there is one thing in life that I never expected to be, it is a coal heaver. The business as conducted in Boston has never appealed to me. Nevertheless,--I have been one. It is almost impossible to get coal here. You have to fetch it yourself. Barbara Howe, from Boston, and I went to get some the other day, on the way home from work in Lizzie. We finally managed to get a bag containing a scant two bushels, I should say, and paid ten francs for it. Miss Howe had just received a letter from her family, commenting on how luxuriously she was living in an apartment by herself! She told me that, just as we were heaving the bag up the steps, and we collapsed with giggles, and could go no farther for some moments, to the astonishment of the passing inhabitants of Paris.

Paris, February 2.

Monday, Dorothy and I went to another hospital. It was run by sisters, and was as clean and neat as a pin, and very sunny. The men were all in little rooms, two or three together, and all convalescent. They were making little chains out of beads, very patiently, and seemed glad to see us. One man, who was plastered all over with medals, and had one leg, took great joy in telling us which medal was which, but wouldn’t tell us how he got them. A man with one arm said, “Yes, when one has only one leg the medals are good as a consolation, only you’ve got to do something to get them.” He didn’t have any medals, but seemed to think it unnecessary for him, as he had both legs.

We have just heard the news of our having broken relations with Germany. Dorothy and I were out in the motor the morning the news came, and an old gentleman nearly fell out of a passing taxi trying to salute us. At the hospitals, they all say that they hope soon to welcome our country, as well as ourselves, as allies.

Marie got a letter from her filleul, telling how he had hung a big sign over the trench proclaiming that the U. S. is now against the “barbares,” which greatly enraged the opposing Hun. Also all along the front they have fired salvos of the 75’s to arouse the Boches, and to celebrate our breaking off diplomatic relations.

I do hope our supplies won’t stop coming on account of the submarines and the break with Germany. The need is so terrible, and still as great, if not greater, than ever.

I have just got S.’s letter about her house-party. It does seem so jolly and cozy and safe. It is a good thing that there is a spot left on earth where one can laugh, just for the joy of laughing.

The number of wounded is a thing one never gets used to. It is awful to see every other soldier wearing a “wounded” badge. Imagine if every second man in the Boston subway wore one, and nearly every woman were in deep black. It’s terrible to think of. However, more and more, one perceives the courage behind, and that seems the greatest thing of all.