The Red Rugs of Tarsus Part 8

_Mersina, May twelfth._

Grandmother dear:

I think it was old Thales (I'm nearer the Greek philosophers out here than I ever was at college) who held that the earth was nothing but certain elements in a state of constant change. Everything is changing all the time. And the inhabitants of the earth have the same chance and luck as the earth, and follow the same law. It is well expressed from the standpoint of the moment of time in which one is placed by the favorite Turkish proverb: "This also shall pa.s.s!" Typically Turkish, that proverb: for the Turk never interprets any event, never tackles the solution of any problem, except in terms of himself and the present.

Yesterday is like to-morrow. It is a waste of time to worry over either.

In crises Turkish philosophy is excellent. It helps a lot to create nerve and maintain fort.i.tude if only you can keep saying to yourself with conviction: "This also shall pa.s.s!"

Sc.r.a.ppie is beside me as I write, in the reed basket we bought from the Fellahin. I am propped just high enough on the pillows to keep my eye on her. I watch her all the time to see if she is really breathing. I have heard of wives making husbands get up in the night to see if baby was breathing, and scoffed at the folly of it. But I'm going to confess to you that I've had two panics. Each time I a.s.sured Herbert that this happens only with first babies, but that doesn't seem to mollify him.

There never was such a fellow for sleeping as Herbert. However, wouldn't it be awful if the baby's covers got up over her head? You understand how I feel, don't you?

_Miette_, "bread-crumb," is the name Jeanne Imer gave Christine in prospect. It also means a little sc.r.a.p of anything: so Herbert and I translated it into Sc.r.a.ppie. The name had the advantage of being non-committal on s.e.x. So Sc.r.a.ppie she is to us. Perhaps you will give her another pet name in Paris. But we rather like ours--I never heard of another kiddie having it.

The birth of your grandchild was not a whit less dramatic than the events preceding. There was a "situation" right up to the last. I wrote you about the plan to gather foreigners in two defended consulates if there was a new ma.s.sacre at Mersina. The ma.s.sacre didn't come off. We shouldn't have gone anyway. Miss Talbot was as game as we were to stay on with the Dodds. The improvised hospitals in Adana called for all available medical men. The ship surgeons, with their pharmacists, all went to Adana. The Mersina mission doctor was working among our Tarsus wounded. I was altogether doctorless. At daybreak of Sc.r.a.ppie's birthday, Mr. Dodds swept the horizon of the sea with his telescope. We were expecting every day relief ships, with Red Cross units, from Beirut. A speck developed into a steamer. Without waiting to ascertain more, Mr. Dodds threw himself into his rowboat. Two husky servants of the mission were at the oars.

It was lucky Mr. Dodds did not hesitate longer. But he is not that sort.

It was a ship from Beirut, and there was an American surgeon aboard.

Doctor Dorman walked into my room just in time.

Everybody in the Mission feels that the placid little baby, with her great blue eyes, is the symbol of hope. Sc.r.a.ppie knows nothing of what the wicked world is doing and how all around her are dying and suffering. She is unadulterated joy. Miss Talbot tried her best, but there were no drawn blinds and pale wan mother. Folks came in to offer congratulations, and make a fuss. I was glad they did. The refugees in the compound celebrated by gathering on a roof below and singing. Some were sorry for us, because it was not a boy, but, after all, if Madama wanted a girl--how queer of Americans to be glad to have daughters!

No one around the Mission had time to celebrate with Herbert, and there was nothing anyway to drink the baby's health in. Herbert went out to send telegrams to the Doughty-Wylies and the Christies, and the cablegram to the Estes. He says he kept saying to himself as he went down the street, "I'm a father!" It's like men to be proud and take all the credit, which just now I think belongs to me. Herbert went to the British wigwag station, but the sailors couldn't leave their post. So he had to order a bottle of beer at Flutey's all alone. Just then a German lieutenant drifted in. Herbert told him the good news, although he had never seen him before, and he drank the toast as sympathetically as a young bachelor could.[6]

On the morning of Sc.r.a.ppie's advent, after a hurried breakfast, my doctor rushed for the Adana train. I haven't seen him since. Nor any other doctor. Miss Talbot is superb. I couldn't have better care. Mrs.

Dodds cooks for me herself, and serves my meals. She thinks Miss Talbot is over-careful in prescribing my diet. When Mrs. Dodds brings soft-boiled eggs, she whispers: "Eat half of this quickly. Miss Talbot thinks there is only one, but I'd like to see any one go hungry in Belle Dodds' house!" Until to-day, when I am first able to write you, they kept pillows out of my reach--books, too. Herbert is too busy to be with me. He has had to go to Tarsus and twice to Adana. Two days after Sc.r.a.ppie came, the Major telegraphed for him to come to take the witness-stand before the court-martial. Lawson Chambers had gone on relief work in the interior, and Herbert was the only other foreigner who saw the beginning of the ma.s.sacre. It was a risky business, but I have got used to letting him go. The tragedy is too great for individuals to count--or to think of themselves.

With Herbert away, and Sc.r.a.ppie sleeping most of the time, and no books, all I could do was to sing. I've gone over all my favorite songs--and many that weren't favorites have been hummed through to the end. I refused to be deterred by the fact that I am under a roof where singing is mostly confined to the metrical version of the Psalms. Mr. Dodds, however, gets away bravely from psalms when he comes to sit beside me of an evening. He loves to hold Sc.r.a.ppie, and sing to her, "Shut Down the Curtains of Your Sweet Blue Eyes." Herbert delights her with "Macnamara's Band."

I have had other visitors in this first week. Most welcome was the chaplain of the British cruiser _Swiftsure_, of whom we had seen something before Sc.r.a.ppie arrived. (Note how I date everything by Sc.r.a.ppie?) Sc.r.a.ppie was about fifty hours old when he turned up with a bottle of old brandy under his arm. I was glad to have his call--and the bottle--just as Herbert was going off once more. And with my door open--it could not be shut all the time--I could hear those dreadful telegrams being read that kept coming from Kessab, Dortyol, Hadjin and other towns of our _vilayet_ and of Northern Syria. Everywhere it was the same story.

Yesterday a second American battle cruiser arrived. It was the _Montana_. The _North Carolina_ came in several days ago. The first officer to land from the _Montana_ was Lieutenant-Commander Beach. When he came to the Mission to call, I asked Miss Talbot to bring him in. He stayed some time, and would have cheered me up a lot had he not mentioned that Lili Neumann was dead. He did not know, of course, what Lili was to me, and I managed to say nothing. Under other circ.u.mstances it would have been a bad shock, but just now nothing seems to go too deep. However, my face must have told him I was suffering, for he looked down so kindly, and asked if there was anything I wanted. "Because, by Jove! you can have the ship," he declared. I told him I hadn't seen ice for ten months. "Just the thing," he exclaimed. A few hours later, sailors brought a huge rectangle of the most delicious thing in the world. There was also a bottle of Bols curacao, and a sweet note. People are good.

Mr. Dodds and Mr. Wilson and Herbert got to work on the ice with hatchets. Mrs. Dodds made ice-cream last night and again for lunch to-day.

I must stop this letter, which has been written largely on the inspiration of that ice-cream. Miss Talbot has scolded me twice, and she hasn't seen other times that I got the paper and pencil under the mattress too soon for her.

I cannot leave it, though, without telling you of another invaluable helper. The very day of Sc.r.a.ppie's arrival, a wee, sawed-off Armenian woman came in. I heard somebody say "Sh," but she started in her toothless Jabberwocky. Miss Talbot tried the effect of cool, insistent English, but she couldn't put Dudu Hanum out. For Dudu Hanum squatted down on the floor, and I snickered. Miss T. thought I was asleep. She went to get Mrs. Dodds to interpret. In the meantime, Dudu Hanum addressed me. She rolled up her sleeves and held her arms out and then up over her head the way you do when you want to stop hiccoughs. All the while she talked volubly. It wasn't Turkish. I had learned some of that.

As it didn't sound like a gang of wreckers pulling down a house, it wasn't Arabic. Must be Armenian. I recognized Dudu Hanum as the sister of the agent who gets our things out of the custom-house. Finally we learned what it was all about. Dudu Hanum was saying: "I have no gift to give you, but I have these two hands. Let me do your washing. I shall wash all your things and all of the baby's." The blessed old thing comes early every morning. What garments Mrs. Dodds allows to escape from her own capable hands, Dudu Hanum washes, and hangs them to dry upon the sun-baked roof.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] A year later I told this story in a Berlin salon. One of the guests at tea, Countess ----, exclaimed, "Why that boy was my son. He wrote me about it at the time."

OFF TO EGYPT

_May twenty-seventh._

Granny Dear:

"The force of example" was a dry old phrase to me not longer than twenty-one days ago. But since Sc.r.a.ppie's coming has moved the generations in our family back one whole cog, I have been thinking about that phrase as something vital. If I continue to call you "Mother,"

Sc.r.a.ppie will call you that. Must I also begin now to call Herbert "father"--move him back a generation, too?

I feel as if I had _always_ had Sc.r.a.ppie. We are not yet at the end of May. But April seems ages ago. The mail from America is just coming with stories of the ma.s.sacres, and what I read seems unreal. Most of it is.

The stories about us are absurd. We never "fled to the coast." We sent but one cablegram to Philadelphia, and none at all to Hartford. That cablegram contained only the single word "safe" to relieve your anxiety.

I see now what that anxiety must have been. So you read that Tarsus was wiped off the map? It would have been--had not the wind changed that night.

Since I have been quietly resting, stretched out on my back, I have decided to put April, 1909, out of my life. Herbert and I do not want to share each other's memories. We have not told each other all we have seen--nor even all we felt and all we did. I cannot get Herbert's full story from him. He does not ask for mine.

Of course, we cannot escape the result of the events we have lived. Just as Herbert's hair has become so white, there must be something inside of us changed, too. Time alone will tell that. Only one thing we do realize right now,--our responsibility to the Armenians. We must work in Egypt, in France, in Germany, in England--and, perhaps later, in America--to let the world know how the Armenians have suffered and what their lot must always be under Turkish rule. We see too--oh, so clearly--how heartless and cynical the diplomats of Europe are. They are the cause, as much as the Turks, of the ma.s.sacres. Not the foreign policy of Russia or Germany alone. As far as the Near East goes, the Great Powers are equally guilty. No distinction can be drawn between them. In England, in Germany and in France, people do not care--because these horrible things are done so far away. They are indifferent to their own solemn treaty obligations. They are ignorant of the cruelty and wickedness of the selfish policy pursued by the men to whom they entrust their foreign affairs. I see blood when I think of what is called "European diplomacy"--for blood is there, blood shed before your eyes.

We are looking forward eagerly to having you join us in France next month. We shall not talk of the ma.s.sacres, to you or to any one, except so much as is necessary to help the Armenian Relief Fund and to show the wickedness and faithlessness of the diplomacy of the Powers in Turkey.

Herbert and I have been saved, and we have our blessed baby. Our life is ahead of us--we are glad to have it ahead--and we want to spend our time and energy in meeting new duties, in solving new problems. Perhaps that is the spirit of youth. But then we are young, and what interests us is our baby's generation. The new life dates from May 5th, when she came to us.

Dear, dear, you would never guess from this long letter I am writing what is going to happen this afternoon. I am able to write only because of the stern orders I got from the boss this morning. He has immobilized me. I am lazily resting in bed just as if I hadn't been up yet at all.

My bed is an island, entirely surrounded by luggage. Suitcases are nearest me. Trunks and steamer bundle are by the door. A Russian steamer is due to leave this evening. Herbert has taken pa.s.sage on her as far as Beirut. There we shall catch the Italian leaving Sat.u.r.day, or perhaps the Messageries _Portugal_, scheduled for Monday. Fancy going to Egypt to get cool in summer! Most people go there to get warm in winter.

Our year is finished. We meant to go early in June, anyway. It is a good thing I am feeling so well, and got my strength back so quickly. The heat is coming on, and we fear quarantine at Beirut and Port Said, if an epidemic breaks out here. This is an urgent reason for our going immediately. Herbert turned over night from a college professor to a newspaper man. He has managed to send dispatches by little boats to Cyprus and they have gone uncensored to Paris. But now he has done all that needs to be done here in the way of getting news out. Much good has been accomplished by publicity. If you didn't have me here to think about when you opened your newspaper at the breakfast table, you would just read headlines, and say, "the Armenians are in trouble again." By "you" I mean the average person at home. Now what Herbert and I must do is to tell our story and give our testimony as convincingly as we can, and then put it where the most people can see it. We detest the advertis.e.m.e.nt from a personal standpoint, but cannot consider that now.

_S.S. "a.s.souan"

Off the Cilician Coast, Friday night, May twenty-seventh._

It wasn't a Russian steamer after all, but an old tub of a Khedivial. It is a palace to us, however, and the British flag looks good to Americans.

The last thing that happened to us in Turkey was to have Sc.r.a.ppie christened. Dr. Christie and Mother Christie came down to say good-by, and Socrates with them. The new American Consul had just arrived from Patras. (He turned out to be a college cla.s.smate of Herbert's!) A christening party was improvised for our farewell. So Sc.r.a.ppie got her name, Christine Este, and the Consul gave a combination birth and baptismal certificate, with the Eagle stamped upon it. I wore my blue dimity dress. Herbert put a big rocking-chair behind me, so that I could flop down in it the first minute I felt tired. Sc.r.a.ppie wore the prettiest of her long dresses, and under her chin was tucked an Indian embroidered handkerchief that Mrs. Doughty-Wylie had long ago given me against the christening day.

It was an odd gathering, missionaries, English and American naval officers, sailors from the warships, Armenian friends, some of our boys, including Socrates, and others I did not know who came to help eat the cake and drink the sherbet. In the Orient, one's door is open to all the world at a feast. I got nervous only when they wanted to kiss the baby. Sc.r.a.ppie howled, and I was glad of the excuse to withdraw her.

When I went downstairs to the carriage, one of the officers of the _North Carolina_ carried my bag, and drove me to the _scala_. Mother Christie held Sc.r.a.ppie. The _North Carolina's_ launch was waiting. Out we went to the great ship, where I was to spend the afternoon. The Christies and others were coming later to say good-by. Herbert was to spend the afternoon rounding up the baggage with the help of Socrates, and row it out to the _a.s.souan_. A London war correspondent had just arrived, too--the first of the newspaper men--and Herbert had to pilot him around.

The sky-line of Mersina, broken by the minarets, gleamed white in the sunshine. I did not dare to think too hard about what I was leaving. My mind flew back to the day I left Tarsus, how the Armenian women pressed my hands, touched my dress as I pa.s.sed, and made me promise to come back. I cheered up by looking at the American flag waving from the stern of the launch. Only a year ago, and that was the _natural_ sight. I did not know that Tarsus and Mersina existed. Turkey was something I thought would forever be vague. And now--it has become a part of my life. All right to talk about banishing memories. But could we? The sunshine of the East they say casts its spell forever over those who have lived in it. Would we ever come back?

We steamed for a mile straight out to sea. The officers told me I was in command, and jollied along as if I were not a matron with a baby. One ensign, a Southerner, of course, called me "Miss" with that inimitable drawl. He was just the kind who would have made it "sweetheart" in an hour. I felt a bit shaky when the launch drew up beside the gleaming white cruiser. As we reached the ladder and then fell away, I imagined my baby falling into the water. First touch of maternal worry, which I suppose I shall now have for the rest of my life. The lieutenant-commander took the baby. Two ensigns carried me up. Once on that ship I was at home.

The captain was waiting to greet the youngest girl who had ever been entertained on the _North Carolina_. Sc.r.a.ppie was fixed up in an officer's bunk, where I knew she would sleep just as placidly as ash.o.r.e until it was time for her next meal. I was invited into the wardroom. A leather arm-chair and--I ought to write a cup of tea, but it wasn't--awaited me. The officers, of course, knew lots of my friends. My mind went waltzing back to dancing days in the Armory and to my birthday dinners at the old Bellevue after Army-Navy games. I was living in the anti-Herbert period, when parsons and missionaries and Turkey and babies did not claim me.

There was a soft knock at the steel door that stood ajar. A big negro put in his head, and announced: "Missus, dat chile am cryin'."

I hurried to my responsibility. Beside the bunk, looking down at the tiny mite, stood a c.o.o.n in white linen. "Missus," he said, "de cap'n tole me to keep mah eye on dis li'l baby, an' not even let a fly walk 'cross dat chile's face. I wants yoh t' know, lady, dem's de bes' awdahs dis c.o.o.n's had sence he lef' home. But I couldn't stop it cryin' jes'

now."

As I picked up Sc.r.a.ppie, whose great blue eyes shelter no shadow of the h.e.l.l that came so near, I realized, with a wave of happiness overwhelming me, that I alone could quiet her.

Late in the afternoon Herbert came with Miss Talbot and the Dodds and Christies. They accompanied us to the _a.s.souan_ in the launch. It was hard to say good-by to the women who had been nearest during the days of danger and suffering. Mother Christie held Sc.r.a.ppie to the last moment.

Miss Talbot, my faithful nurse, who had stuck by me for seven weeks with unwavering devotion when there was so much larger and so much more tempting a field in nursing the wounded--what could I say to her? Jeanne Imer and Mary Rogers had been with me constantly. I expected to see them soon again in Europe. But Mrs. Dodds, who had taken me in and done for me as if I were one of her own family--was I just to say "Thank you!"? I said to Mrs. Dodds: "What can I ever do for you to--to--" She gently interrupted. "You don't know life, dear, if you think you can do anything for me. You will probably never see me again. If you ever meet a woman having a baby under difficult circ.u.mstances--just help her!"