The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-07-27
MEN, WOMEN
AND THINGS

aid
Many times the callers have axes to
hand and help sharpen them if it is
within my power to do so.
am glad people care enough to ask
me to help them in the things they are
trying to put over so long as there is no
suspicion of there being any financial
gain to them in what they are striving
to get me to exploit.
mean 1 am always willing to help
any worthy cause if 1 can do it. / realize
that there are many men and women
who are unselfishly giving their time and
means to building up certain social, re-
ligious, or charitable institutions, and
it's a genuine pleasure to get in behind
them and give them a lift.
also have quite few cranks who pay
me visit, and yet 1 am never too busy
to hear their story. I have always had
a warm place in my heart for men and
women who are struggling with a new
idea they don't know how to handle or
possessed by an old one they can't
get rid Of.
l am glad to state, however, that many
who call in to see me leave behind them
who drop in to say kind thing about
something have said or written or done
and just want me to know that it was
appreciated.
And then I get many letters and some
are delightful 1 also get the usual an
onymous and abusive kind, but If those
who wrote them realized how little at
tention / paid to them they wouldn't
take the trouble to write them For quite
awhile was bombarded by some one
whose typewriter skipped a letter and
did other funny stunts. I soon forgot
the mean and stupid things they wrote.
but always had desire to make con-
tribution to have their machine repaired.
This is long way to get to what
sat down to write, for recently 1 had
a visit from charming grandmother.
an Alsatian Jewess, who had been inter-
ested in some of my references to the
Latin quarter in Paris, and had just
stopped in to tell me that she enjoyed
them.
1 found that she had spent a year In
Paris since the great war began and
she revived many memories of my Pari-
sian days and nights, for although she
has lived in this country 26 years and
has given a son to her adopted land, she
still retains the vivacity and gestures of
the French and the capacity to make one
see the things she sees in series of
vivid word pictures.
1t was a dramatic story she told of
seeing the first train load Of wounded
soldiers that reached Paris and how the
populace was affected at the sight and
how every one tried to add to their COM
fort in some way. AS she warmed to the
tale I could almost see the wounds and
hear the groans of the suffering men
who, bleeding and mangled, had been
hurried home to the great hospitals.
She was in Paris the day on which
they brought the bones of Rouget de
Lisle, the young man who wrote La
Marseillaise," the stirring hymn Of the
French republicans which sent the troops
of France on their conquering way over
Europe-the hymn that today sets every
drop Of blood in every man who hears
it to quivering-to renter them in Paris,
the heart of France. But she was
truthful enough to say that she was
stupid and missed it all. as she went out
and bought a paper and went back to
her room and read it while all Paris was
cises She thought the ceremonies would
take place in the afternoon and they
were enacted in the forenoon.
She told me how one morning she left
her hotel in search of a Jewish temple
and overhearing some parties speaking
English asked a lady If she could direct
her. only to find out that she was q
Jewess from Chicago and knew just
where it was, and as they went along
together learned that they had mutual
friends in America. 1t was rather q
strange coincidence.
When asked about prices in Paris, she
said at the time she was there most
of the hotels were closed and that she
got a large room with bath for four
francs day-about 80 cents in our
money-and that the prices of meals at
the restaurants were most reasonable.
The thing that struck her most was
the marvellous composure of the French
| women in the face of suffering and pri-
vations. Mothers bore the death of their
sons with undreamed fortitude. Wives
gave UP their husbands without any out
ward murmuring. To her, every day
brought a lesson of patience and cour-
| age.
| But to me the most striking thing
| she said was that France was at last
realizing the wisdom Of entrusting finan-
cial affairs to women. Women in France
| have a part in business that seems
strange to Americans. It's usually the
| wife who looks after the money end OF
the shops in France. Now that the hus-
bands are at the front the business goes
| on as usual, for their wives are trained
to carry 1t on without dislocation.
These and many other interesting
| things she told me in the hour she spent
with me. 1t was almost like going back
l 1.~sor Tbo roin rourad ~, the