On the Edge of the War Zone | Page 5

"something alive" moving about me in the silent little

house. So she put him in my lap. He settled himself down, went to
sleep, and showed no inclination to leave me.
At the end of two hours he owned me--the very first cat I ever knew,
except by sight.
So you may dismiss that idea which torments you--I am no longer
alone.
I am going to send this letter at once to be dropped in the box in front
of the post-office, where I am very much afraid it may find that of last
week, for we have had no letters yet nor have I seen or heard anything
of the promised automobile postale. However, once a stamped letter is
out of my hand, I always feel at least as if it had started, though in all
probability this may rest indefinitely in that box in the "deserted
village."

II
September 25, 1914
IT is over a week since I wrote you. But I have really been very busy,
and not had a moment.
To begin with, the very day after I wrote to you, Amélie came down
with one of her sick headaches, and she has the most complete sort I
ever met.
She crawled upstairs that morning to open my blinds. I gave one look at
her, and ordered her back to bed. If there is anything that can make one
look worse than a first-class bilious attack I have never met it. One can
walk round and do things when one is suffering all sorts of pain, or
when one is trembling in every nerve, or when one is dying of
consumption, but I defy anyone to be useful when one has an active
sick headache.
Amélie protested, of course; "the work must be done." I did not see
why it had to be. She argued that I was the mistress, "had a right to be
attended to--had a right to expect it." I did not see that either. I told her
that her logic was false. She clinched it, as she thought, by declaring
that I looked as if I needed to be taken care of.
I was indignant. I demanded the handglass, gave one look at myself,
and I was inclined to let it slide off the bed to the floor, à la Camille,
only Amélie would not have seen the joke. I did look old and seedy.
But what of that? Of course Amélie does not know yet that I am like

the "Deacon's One Hoss Shay"--I may look dilapidated, but so long as I
do not absolutely drop apart, I can go.
So I told Amélie that if I were the mistress, I had a right to be obeyed,
and that there were times when there was no question of mistress and
maid, that this was one of those times, that she had been a trump and a
brick, and other nice things, and that the one thing I needed was to
work with my own hands. She finally yielded, but not to my
arguments--to Nature.
Perhaps owing to the excitement of three weeks, perhaps to the fact that
she had worked too hard in the sun, and also, it may be, owing to the
long run she took, of which I wrote you in my letter of last week, it is
the worst attack I ever saw. I can tell you I wished for a doctor, and she
is even now only a little better.
However, I have had what we used to call "a real nice time playing
house." Having nothing else to do, I really enjoyed it. I have swept and
dusted, and handled all my little treasures, touching everything with a
queer sensation--it had all become so very precious. All the time my
thoughts flew back to the past. That is the prettiest thing about
housework--one can think of such nice things when one is working
with one's hands, and is alone. I don't wonder Burns wrote verses as he
followed the plough--if he really did.
I think I forgot to tell you in my letter of last week that the people--
drummed out of the towns on the other side of the Marne, that is to say,
the near-by towns, like those in the plain, and on the hilltops from
which the Germans were driven before the 10th--began to return on that
night; less than a fortnight after they fled. It was unbelievable to me
when I saw them coming back.
When they were drummed out, they took a roundabout route, to leave
the main roads free for the army. They came back over the route
nationale. They fled en masse. They are coming back slowly, in family
groups. Day after day, and night after night the flocks of