The tea is good.
I will see my wife when I go back to First River.
My mother’s mother had a boil ten years ago—she cured it with ashes.
What time is it? Never mind, what does it matter?
My brother’s cow has a calf.
And the world shuddering about what would happen to the Russian people, groping amid the ruins of a shattered nation! Massacres in Petrograd and Moscow, in Samara and Perm, Vladivostok in control of Allied troops, wreck and ruin, refugees and desolation, unlimited numbers of factions quarreling to see who would pick the bones of the country, intrigue, murder and sudden death stalking through city and town, the very railroad on which they worked ready to lie down and die in its tracks, their wages six months overdue, and no telling what would happen to-morrow to themselves or their families—these people calmly discussed the birth of a relative’s calf!
And I, with several thousand other American citizens, had cast aside all the things we held dear, to come half way round the world and fight to save Russia! The American people poured men and money, to help these people, and for a long time will be paying the bills. But the Russian worried only about the temperature of his tea, and wondered why we should worry at all about him or his affairs. And the railroad men in Siberia represent the best type of working men, far above the simple peasant in mental advancement.
With a similar state of affairs at home, can we imagine the crew of one of our passenger trains finding nothing to discuss but trivial personal affairs? Yet we persisted in considering the Russian people on a par with our own in seeking enlightened government and an orderly condition of life, once they had rid themselves of the oppressing Czar and his bureaucrats.
In due time, our train moved out. The car windows were sealed tightly against any outside air. The three decks of sleeping shelves were filled with men, women and children, so completely that from floor to ceiling there was a solid block of humanity. I managed to secure a shelf for my blankets, by watching those who prepared to detrain at stations ahead, and taking the space before the new passengers got in.
The narrow aisle was so piled with cases and bags of merchandise and personal effects, that it was almost impossible to get in or out of the car. And there were battles royal at every station, as one mob tried to get out while the other mob fought its way inside. There were many Chinese, peddling with packs, carrying salt, tea, sugar and such necessities, and selling them at exorbitant prices. Instead of sugar, there was also a cheap, highly-colored candy, used to sweeten tea—and give it most outlandish flavors.