an in particular. She was bearing a burden heavy
enough to send a strong American athlete staggering down to the
ground, while at her side majestically marched her faithful knight,
bearing a bird-cage, and there wasn't any bird in it, either.
Nothing could be more mirth-provoking than that sight; yet,
strangely enough, the most tear-compelling memory of the war is
connected with another bird-cage. Two children rummaging
through their ruined home dug it out of the debris. In it was their
little pet canary. While fire and smoke rolled through the house it
had beat its wings against the bars in vain. Its prison had become
its tomb. Its feathers were but slightly singed, yet it was dead with
that pathetic finality which attaches itself to only a dead bird--its
silver songs and flutterings, once the delight of the children, now
stilled forever.
The photographers had long looked for what they termed a first-
class sob-picture. Here it was par excellent. The larger child stood
stroking the feathers of her pet and murmuring over and over
"Poor Annette," "Poor Annette!" Then the smaller one snuggling
the limp little thing against her neck wept inconsolably.
Instead of seizing their opportunity, the movie man was clearing
his throat while the free lance was busy on what he said was a
cinder in his eye. Yet this very man had brought back from the
Balkan War of 1907 a prime collection of horrors; corpses thrown
into the death-cart with arms and legs sticking out like so much
stubble; the death-cart creeping away with its ghastly load; and the
dumping together of bodies of men and beasts into a pit to be
eaten by the lime. This man who had gone through all this with
good nerve was now touched to tears by two children crying over
their pet canary. There are some things that are too much for the
heart of even a war-photographer.
To give the whole exodus the right tragic setting, one is tempted to
write that tears were streaming down all the faces of the refugees,
but on the contrary, indeed, most of them carried a smile and a
pipe, and trudged stolidly along, much as though bound for a fair.
Some of our pictures show laughing refugees. That may not be
fair, for man is so constituted that the muscles of his face
automatically relax to the click of the camera. But as I recall that
pitiful procession, there was in it very little outward expression of
sorrow.
Undoubtedly there was sadness enough in all their hearts, but
peopl
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