know what I would not do to feed all the poor cows and
horses and sheep that are left. A number of friends in Petersburg
gave me some money to distribute--a little over a hundred dollars. I
gave about 50 in Sapieva and the rest I am going to use to save the
animals. Aside from my pity for them, it will be terrible for the
peasants not to have a horse to work in the fields as soon as the
warm weather comes. Where will they be next year? I can help at least
two or three families. One poor woman when I bought some feed for her
horse and cow simply fell on her knees on the ground. Poodie, really
how far people live from each other and how little one can dream of
this life if one has not been in it. Perhaps other people understand
things more or realize more, but with all I have seen and heard
and read, that is simply being born to something entirely
unknown--besides all the feelings one experiences oneself in being
thus shut off from everything. I have at last attained my own bowl
and spoon. I drink coffee and eat a piece of black bread in the
morning. At 12 a bowl of buckwheat or some kind of grain with a
wooden spoon--a glass of tea and at night a glass of cocoa and black
bread, or as a treat a dish of sour milk. I cook and iron and do
everything myself, but it is very simple."

"This is part of 'Little Russia' and is much cleaner than 'Great
Russia.' I brought with me a few fleas from Great Russia and have the
greatest sympathy for Tibi for the time she was exposed to flea
companionship. How they bite and jump."

"The Tartars were so clean--the very poorest and none of the disorder
that one sees in Great Russia. There is something absolutely
distinctive about the Tartars and one feels a certain civilization
and settledness that is different from all the other villages I have
seen. Did I tell you how we all slept in a row with the old tartar
and his wife and child?"

"Though I was doing my best to master the tartar tongue, I can
converse more readily here. The Little Russian dialect is very
different from Russian but one can get a long. The Red Cross will
probably be stationed here throughout the famine--until the 'New
Bread,' that is about the end of July--but Baroness Ixkull promised
to replace me as soon as she could get another sister. I hope to get
back to America in July."

Kalakshinovka 1912.

"A peasant walked in today and brought me a present--an apple about
the size of a plum. I wanted to keep it until E