The daily Alaskan., 1918-08-27
American Red Cross in Paris Quickly Answers Finer.
 genCy Call
HOMELESS LAUGH AND JOKE.
No Bitterness, No Complaint, No pes- pair Among People, Many of Whom Were Refugees for Sec.
 ond and Third Time.


 1 the east of Amiens will pass through | Acheres at seven o'clock tonight. | They will not have had any supper, some of them may not have had any lunch. There is no food there and no facilities for feeding them. Can you help us?"
 That was the telephone message from the French minister of the h. terIor which came to the American Red Cross at noon one day during the German drive on Amiens, and the an- swer was "Yes. Emergency mes- sages are no surprise to us these days" The food was ordered out of the warehouses and a score of volunteers rounded up. ..
 They started at six o'clock the same evening. One five-ton truck loaded with timed beef and condensed milk, | figs, prunes, chocolate and heaps Of huge loaves of war bread; two car | loads of midnight volunteers, stenog- raphers, bureau chiefs, drivers and canteen workers set out on their way | to bring help to the homeless refu- gees. ......
 They rolled out through the resi- dential district of Paris, out past the | Notifications, bumped through grlmy l factory suburbs and on into the open country where the level plains stretch off into infinite distance, broken only by interminable rows of slim pop lars. .
 Then suddenly. without warning, there emerged from the forest into a black smudge of railway tracks, cin- ders, flat-cars, passenger cars, sheds, l platforms, warehouses, cranes Acheres. It was the junction point, where the thousands of refugees were to stop for half an hour.
 Saluted With One Arm.
 Lieutenant NJ met us there, sa- luted stiffiy with his one arm, and did the honors of the station. A group of weary, muddy "permisSionaires," most I of them over forty, just back from the Champagne front, were routed out to help us establish our tables on the cinders between the tracks, and pile the food where 1t could conveniently be passed into the train. They unloaded bread, scraped cheese, opened tins of "bully beef," knocked the tops off the boxes of figs and prunes and made plans to feed thousand people in half an hour. But somewhere off in the silent country the train, packed full of exiles, was standing on a side track. It was after two In the morning when the long train with It's 2S carriages filled with refugees came into Acheres. .
 A few windows were opened; tired faces looked out and voices asked, un- interestedly, "Where are we% and were surprised to be told that they were near Paris. The train was on Its way, they said to Tulle in the Cor reze department, in the south of France.
 "Wll they treat us we'll there?" an old woman asked and they, in the full ness of their ignorance, not daring to say otherwise, answered "Yes."
 It was a short half hour. They carried them bread, they filled the old woman's apron with figs and prunes, they gave milk to the children, meat to the old men, cheese to everybody. They absorbed cakes of sweet choco' late in rapid and mysterious man. ner. Some of them were the much be- petticoated women of Picardy and some were grizzled old farmers. 9th CTS were city folk, obviously not used to third class travel. There were fam allies of three generations huddled to. gether on their way-somewhere. Som, clutched precious umbrellas, some carried bird cages, some alarm | clocks. Some of them had dogs, some had cats. But the pathos of 1t all was not on the surface. Some of them quietly told that they were refugees for the second and third time and laughed and joked when they woke up, There was no bitterness, no com. plaint, no despair. .... .s ..
 Bread Pile Fell Away.
 The huge pile of bread fell away the fig boxes were emptied, the tins were all handed into the trains. The engine shrieked a shrlll French whis. tie and the train pulled away. The rescuers were in the silence of the night. One of many thousands of ref. ugees had had one dreary midnight meal, fur from home-one lonely meal out of hundreds, perhaps thousands, before them. -., ......
 4 train load of wounded from the front joggled in ten minutes later. The men nurses carried water through the carriages swiftly and silently. Then the Americans handed out the rem nants of their stores of figs and the train slipped away again. Behind them could be heard the dull booming of the barrage guns about Paris, a;.d the vis' itors knew that another air raid was .on. They waited until the barrage