ain to America, but not for very long. Early in 1912
she was again getting ready to go back to Europe. Writing from
Ashantee in 1912 she said:

"I know it is unrest--I know it all--yet the true picture is that of
going thousands of miles to where I am not needed, and leaving my two
best friends. I long for the work and can't wait. Between now and it,
just think what bumps and jolts and frights and moans. Oh, what is it
all about?"

Nelka spent that winter with her aunt Martha in Washington. It had
been a winter entirely filled with social activities--balls, dinners,
the White House, the Embassies--and Nelka could not stand it any
longer and was seeking some contrast. She certainly achieved the
contrast all right, for as soon as she returned to Russia she was
sent to the outskirts of the Oural Mountains. In that region a famine
had been quite severe and the Government sent out feeding stations
and Red Cross units to take care of the stricken people. Sisters were
established in different villages, sometimes entirely isolated, where
they issued provisions and gave medical care to the peasants. Nelka
spent a whole winter in one of these villages, living in a one-room
hut with a peasant family and sleeping on a wooden bench. What a
contrast after the social life of Washington!

Here is a descriptive letter written from Kalakshinovka, District of
Samara, in 1912:

"I am in a desert of snow, in quiet and peace, and feeding three
villages. I lie on my bed which consists of two wooden benches side
by side--one a little higher than the other. Only thing is that it
is almost inaccessible. Even with the snow it is more roily and bumpy
than the worst sea ever dreamed of being, and all one can do is to
lie with one's eyes closed on some straw in the kind of low sleigh
that bumps along hour after hour over these steppes. I first went to
Sapieva, a tartar village in the District of Bougulma. Now I am
settled and hope to stay here. I was busy last night late giving out
provisions and weighing flour and today I have been trying to
straighten out grievances and see that all receive justly--sometimes
very complicated. Some brother of the official writer of the village,
quarreled with the son of a poor woman when that woman's cow came too
near his premises, and he made his son beat her off. My position in
the matter is whatever the pro's and con's--how dare anyone hurt a
poor famished cow and I am settling it on that line."

"I don't