III
THE ODYSSEY OF MR. SOLSLOG
“You-all are in charge of the Relief Commission, suh? I am Mistah Solslog, of Alabama. I’m lookin’ for my sistah.”
The tense blue eyes of my fellow-countryman stared at me searchingly, and I at him. He wore a rubber collar and a false shirt front of a style which afforded popular subjects for caricature twenty-five years ago. His salt-and-pepper suit was cheap, horribly cheap, thin, cotton, summer weight, but immaculate. His hat—an old, well-brushed Stetson—was in his hand. He had no luggage. In the cold winter light of my office in Antwerp his slight, lean features looked prematurely aged, but neither age nor hardship had changed the characteristically even Southern drawl.
“Sit down, Mr. Solslog,” I said. “We’re feeding eleven hundred thousand Belgians here, and clothing and giving work, too, but an American citizen certainly has a claim.”
His face reddened. “Thank you, suh, but it ain’t that sort of help I reequiah, Preehaps you did not understand me. I’m a-lookin’ for my sistah.”
“Yes?”
“She was in Maubeuge when the war broke out.” He pronounced it Maw-booge. “She was a governess, suh. I read in the Atlanta Constitution that war was declared. That was on a Sunday. I quit my job in the lumberyard an’ come straight over here on the old Saint Paul, and I ain’t found her—not yet.”
“But, Mr. Solslog, it’s February now. You left America in August?”