Wednesday, October 16.—Getting lazy with diary; mindful of old Mark Twain.
Hear woman's voice calling "Ambulance! Ambulance! Ambulance! in 172 moet een meisje weggedra wordt" (Ambulance! in 172 a little girl has to be removed). Here go the bearers!
172 is just thirty yards from 177, where I take meals, and next to 171 old Mrs. Van Straten, whom I regularly visit, and yet I know absolutely nothing of this girl's sickness nor her death till this very minute. Enough to make one discouraged.
Of Monday's work can't remember much except that I found the "summum" of misery and distress in 678, Pelser's; whole family down measles; poverty; filth; baby ill at breast (died yesterday, buried this afternoon); sent food, but made her promise faithfully that children would be washed to-day.
What horrible thing is dirt! Surely one of greatest gifts is to be able to appreciate the "clean."
Funerals again Monday; "Zalig zijn de dooden die in den Heere sterven" (Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord); so many children again.
Visit old Mr. Du Toit on way home.
Now am I positively dead![66] "Mijnheer, min. moet mij tog een ding beloove; om als de oorlog verbij is, die preek van min. te laat druk enz enz, Om te doen gedenken" (Sir, you must promise me one thing, to publish your sermon on 'To bring to remembrance' when the war is over).
"Kan jij nou meer!"[67] Really now, after all there is nothing like a good, long, square ear-to-ear grin in this world!
Shall I deny, though, that there is just a wee drop of cheer and comfort, huge as the joke is!