The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-02-18
HUNGER IN MACEDONIA.
Red Cross Worker Encounters Humor-
Gus AS Well as Tragic Incidents.

] was more than grateful to the field
marshal of the Serbian army for two
actual soldiers with bayonets, whom he
sent to guard my plant during my stay
at Brod. Although one may not be
afraid for herself in the vicinity of a
strange army, an armed guard is re-
assuring when the witching hour comes
in the suburbs of the war zone, says
| Emily Simmonds in Leslie s.
| We made a stove out of boulders and
| fashioned grid from empty shells.
| Chitcha broke up the blanket case for
! frewood. There are few trees in Mace
| donia-the Turks cut and burned them
down. Our cooking pots were two
empty petrol cans. All the armies
thank the Standard Oil company for
its thoughtfulness III shipping the gaso-
| line for the war III l0-gallon tin cans.
The empties are utilized for everything
| from teacups to camp stoves
/ Yoyan made tea that could be drunk,
after straining the water with which
it was made through a bath towel,
which had no other avoeation in that
vicinity. Afterwards, / always made
the tea myself. Chitcha dug a cellar
IN my tent SO that an army cot might
be set up III ii, and we called il a dav.
Not having lain down since leaving
Salonica two days before on the cium-
sy railroad that had brought me the
first part of the way, | forgot about
myself and went to sleep to the Groom
ing Of the night guns. whose roar was
mutfed to a chant by snow storm
dumped from low clouds stretching
from kaymakehalan to Monastir
We cooked beans in the morning, be-
fore curious audience, for our camp
aud fire had been spied Italian sol
diers stared, and q score of Serbian
children from three to eight years old
! whitfield the boiling beans like hungry
puppy dogs. They were pitiful things
! halt starved and not even half clothed
To tho fragments of original Macedo
Man homespun left on their shivering
backs had been added bits of appare
picked up among the soldiers. One lit
tie girl wore the top part of Frencl
army oyercoat, while another had the
tail of il draped around her like
shawl. Few of them had shoes or ever
: wrappings on their feet, although i
S YVES cold and raw wind blew from
: ilurries Of damp, chill snow.
t told the children to 90 home an,
5 to come back in two hours, when
would give them food They went bu
e i'll less than an hour they all were bacl
: with one hundred per cent increase il
their ranks. A beanerv in the Balkan
!. mountains is 4 self advertising institu
: ton,
I'M my
e camp on pieces of rock shiverng. S
Y tore blankets into three pieces an,
s gave them to the smaller children 70
! shawls Leeza, a blue-eycd Serb maid
|, en- OF eight, told me that she had thre
children at home who needed coats
k Later Oh ! went to her hut in the cor
t neT OF ruined stone wall and foun,
e that she has told the truth. He
mother had been killed by an avioI
bomb, and the soldiers had buried heI
r Luckily, had a roll Of America
e Rod Cross funds in cash / went shop
h ping for food along the war front, an,
found an Italian division magazin
n pretty well stocked with a variety o
foodstuffs, which | could buy for tn
Red Cross
During the succeeding weeks w
bought our beans and rice. milk an,
t. cocoa there, while the news of our com
Q ing spread through the mountains an,
i the number of hungry stomaches con
s tinued to grow in number.
= The delight of the children in bein
: well fed for the first time in man
r moons was tempered by the daily az
prehension of airplanc raids.
/, Gradually our Red Cross station b,
k came fixture in the neighborhood an
= in the simple minds of the refuge
n women. The service broadened.
d tried to teach mothers to help in tn
i preparation of food and to keep then
y selves and their babies cleaner The
were loaded with lice, carriers of y
4 plus. Having been through one wiz
tor Of typhus did not want anothC
y epidemic on my hands.
It An old lady in rags as dirty as he
@orso2. who laimed TO be SO cam
ta "a. teat one evening and insisted u,
a On seeing me, as her mission was U
lie gent When l came out she waile
III that her days were nearly done, ths
she was 10 die soon and would | giy