The wonderful thing is that these camels were led by a Turk belonging to the people who hate the Armenians, yet he was carrying food and clothes to them! Why did this Turk in Konia go on countless journeys, travelling over thousands of miles with tens of thousands of parcels containing wheat for bread and new shirts and skirts and other clothes for the Armenians whom he had always hated, and never lose a single parcel?
Why did he do it?
This is the reason. Before the war when he was ill in the hospital Miss Cushman had nursed him with the help of her Armenian girls, and had made him better; he was so thankful that he would just run to do anything that she wished him to do.
To Stay or not to Stay?
But at last Miss Cushman—worn out with all this work—fell ill with a terrible fever. For some time it was not certain that she would not die of it; for a whole month she lay sick in great weakness. President Wilson had at this time broken off relations between America and Turkey. The Turk now thought of the American as an enemy; and Miss Cushman was an American. She was in peril. What was she to do?
"It is not safe to stay," said her friends. "You will be practically a prisoner of war. You will be at the mercy of the Turks. You know what the Turk is—as treacherous as he is cruel. They can, if they wish, rob you or deport you anywhere they like. Go now while the path is open—before it is too late. You are in the very middle of Turkey, hundreds of miles from any help. The dangers are terrible."
As soon as she was well enough Miss Cushman went to the Turkish Governor of Konia, a bitter Mohammedan who had organised the massacre of forty thousand Armenians, to say that she had been asked to go back to America.
"What shall you do if I stay?" she asked.
"I beg you to stay," said the Governor. "You shall be protected. You need have no fear."
"Your words are beautiful," she replied. "But if American and Turkey go to war you will deport me."