All day there has been a procession of refugees. They seem to have gathered in little groups first, for they came in a few hundred at a time in pulsation. In the afternoon they came steadily. Mother! the sound of the feet of the multitude. Some poor things were wounded, some were looking for husbands or children that could not be found. They brought nothing with them. Sick women were carried on the backs of their husbands. Little children struggled to keep up with panic-stricken elders. Children, feeble old people, chronic invalids, the desperately ill, were possessed with supernatural strength. When they reached the goal, our gate, they were like the Durando we described in the Marathon race last summer. A big fellow in the meager guard at our gate was a host in himself. He had a hearty voice, and kept waving his arms and shouting, "Come in, everybody. Inside this gate is safety for you all! Courage, little children." Occasionally he would pick up a crying baby or a sick woman, and help them inside. It was the one cheerful kindly sight of the day—to see that soldier.
About noon from Jeanne and Henri's study I saw an attack on a house very near us. There was a low hum in the distance: then a roar, and on the second-story balcony twenty-five Bashi-bazouks climbed, bursting in the door to the house of the richest man in Tarsus. There was shooting and screaming: then flying bits of burning paper came out of the windows, followed by blue and red flames. By opening our shutters cautiously we could hear the cruel hiss of the flames and smell kerosene in the smoke. Then the rending and crashing of the floors made a deafening noise, and the sparks began to alight on our property.
This is the regular order of things,—kill, loot, burn. The Armenian quarter is the most substantial part of the city. Most of the people store cotton on the ground floor, and this, together with liberal applications of kerosene, served to make a holocaust. Now at evening-time we realize our own imminent danger.
I have made tea about twenty times during the day. What a blessing you sent those provisions. Good thing we chose from among our wedding gifts the chafing-dish and the tea-basket to bring along on our journey. I have given away everything I could spare. Things to drink out of are a vital necessity. I gave away my tooth-mug to a thirsty old woman, and reserved as my drinking cup the little china affair one keeps tooth-brushes in on a washstand. It stands unabashed beside the smart little silver tea-kettle and spirit lamp. How I miss my oranges. Mother Christie found a stray one this morning and sent it in to me. The boys brought some charcoal and made a fire in a mangal in my fireplace. I have tried my hand at a pilaf. Kevork brought some sheep-tail grease in a bit of paper and I held my nose while I melted it and poured it into the pilaf. I do not see why these people do not cook with wagon grease and be done with it.
Your tins of condensed milk I have given to Mary Rogers for her baby. A mother brought her two-year-old boy to me. The poor little thing had had nothing to eat since yesterday. The whole Armenian question sums itself up for me in those big brown eyes and their kindling with sudden light as I held a bowl of warm milk to that baby's trembling mouth. I couldn't make him smile, though, for all my coaxing.
The meals of our immediate family are served in my bedroom. Mrs. Christie's house, the big dining-room, the school buildings are overflowing with refugees. It is only the most strenuous efforts of the college boys that prevent them from over-running us too. I have just my bedroom, Mary the other bedroom for herself and the baby, and Miss Talbot is in our study. Jeanne's extra bedroom eighteen women have managed to get into. Henri's study is crowded too. I am working on baby clothes to keep my mind occupied. I am making flannel nighties: there are hundreds of babies out under our trees and on the hard asphalt of the tennis court without one change of clothing.
Dear, dear, here is a woman who has been in terrible suffering all day long. Her husband and brother were with her and several times tried to flee with her. They picked her up a bit ago and started with her through the red and black streets. Overpowered, she stopped in ——'s garden and had her baby. Wrapping the baby in something and putting it in the mother's arms, the men picked her up and made the final dash for safety. We have pulled the buggy out of the carriage-house and made a place for her in the corner. She is resting nicely now.
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Socrates came to me and said that friends of his, Greeks like himself, have invited him to join them in an attempt to escape to Mersina. They have a dead Greek's passport for him. He asked my advice. I told him I could not take the responsibility. Danger? There is little choice—staying here or trying to get away. I told him to go off by himself to think it over. He came back to tell me this: "You are alone. If you have to run away, you have nobody to go with you. Professor Gibbons—no one knows where he is. I will stay with you."[4]
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