Dearest Aunt Esther:—

It is curious that gloom is so absolutely gloomy and that happiness is so happy and full. There are times when I cast about for something to write home about without finding anything—or rather nothing that isn’t so black that it seems only selfishness to sit down and enlarge upon it. To-night, on the contrary, I have spent a most wonderful Easter, and looking backward and forward I can see a thousand things that I should love to tell you about. It can be only a few for the moment, for the electricity will be turned off in a few minutes.

This morning Marjorie, my new but very dear friend who lives here at the pension, woke me up and said that the sun was shining. It has rained and snowed without a break lately and the sunlight seemed a glorious novelty.

We had breakfast together, then went to the patriotic service at the American Church, where Dr. Shurtleff preached. The long-waited-for news of our actually going to war had rejoiced us all yesterday, but it was more thrilling than we ever could have imagined to drive past the big French Administration Buildings and see the Stars and Stripes waving with the other Allies’ flags in the Easter sunshine! To be one of the Allies at last! To have our flag and the French flag flying side by side as they should be, to have our great country wake up and fight its own fight—it is not only Easter but Thanksgiving to-day.

The American Church was full—men from the American Ambulance Service sat in uniform in the front rows and the church was decorated in flowers and flags. Dr. Shurtleff preached a fine sermon. He said that to lose life was to gain it, and that this war was fought that war should cease—that the world should know Christ’s peace.

A lovely primrose plant was waiting for us here. After all the cold and snow, flowers, especially the pink primrose, are heavenly. In the afternoon Mrs. Shurtleff came over to say that the pianist who was to play at Dr. Shurtleff’s little Sunday evening meeting had been taken ill, and would I play. Fortunately I had given a short programme last Monday at the last meeting of a woman’s club, so that I was glad to be able to fill in.

I must tell you about last Monday. Not long ago I exchanged the little old upright that I have had all winter for a wonderful Pleyel (French make corresponding to Steinway). This piano seems to me to be the most wonderful instrument I ever heard, and I love it and pat it and dust it and play it, never tiring. It has saved my life these past weeks.

Knowing that I have been playing more of late, Mrs. Baldwin asked me to play for the woman’s club that I spoke of. I couldn’t think of much to play, and of course I have no music with me, but I was glad to have something to make me practice, and I accepted.

The club meets every Monday afternoon to sew and knit garments for the war orphans—Mrs. Cassette, a dear lady who used to live in Chicago, is the president, and when it was time for me to play, she made the announcement, and proceeded to enlarge on the Root family in general and grandfather in particular. She spoke of his influence during the Civil War, and of his and Uncle Fred’s help in establishing good music in Chicago. She spoke beautifully and gave me an at-home sort of feeling to think of her knowing my relatives; but it was hard for me when she started speaking of me as the third generation, etc. After I had played I met a great many interesting people, among them the girl who wrote that little book of letters called “Mademoiselle Miss.” Do you remember reading it with Mother at Bailey’s last summer? The letters are full of imagination, and charming, as is Miss Dare herself. We went off in a corner together and talked over our experiences at a great rate.

To come back to Sunday evening. I played at the meeting the same programme as on Monday. To my surprise, Dr. Shurtleff also made a speech about grandfather, whom he knew in Chicago when he (Dr. Shurtleff) was a young man. Many people came up and spoke to me afterwards, and I found that lots of them knew the family in Chicago. Their enthusiasm was quite exciting and made me feel almost like writing war songs myself. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear grandfather’s “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,” sung in France!

Yesterday—Easter Monday—we all gave up our holiday to go to the Vestiaire and help to move our ouvroir department into a little store up the street. I have explained that the work is carried on in an apartment on the ground floor at 18 rue Ernest Cresson—one room is the women’s vestiaire, another, the men’s vestiaire, a third Mrs. Shurtleff’s office, and a fourth, the ouvroir, where sewing and all kinds of work is given out to the refugees. We have been crowded always, but of late it has been almost impossible to work in the front two rooms with so many people doing different things at once. People would keep running in and out of Mrs. Shurtleff’s office while she was dictating, to look up records, or to get down reserve stock from the shelves; the officer of the day would have to interview refugees in a corner of the ouvroir, while lines of other refugees were waiting to call for, and hand in, work—the confusion was impossible. The two rooms together are not as big as the den at home.

Well, Mrs. Shurtleff, who goes around this world with her eyes open, I can tell you, discovered a little store that had been closed since the beginning of the war. It had been rented by a German. He was chased away in 1914, his windows broken, and the place roughly boarded up. Mrs. Shurtleff sought out the proprietor, rented it, and had it repaired. Saturday word came that we could move in. We have been so crazy to spread out a little that when some one suggested that all hands should report on Easter Monday,—one of the great holidays here,—and get the moving actually done, we all volunteered. At nine o’clock we started. We took things down off shelves, stood in line and passed them through the window, where Miss Curtis received them and stuffed them into the Ford. When the poor little car was so laden down with clothes and materials and bundles that it looked as though it would burst a blood vessel, it started off and we all ran along beside it up to the new shop. There we formed another line, and unloaded the car and put the things on the waiting shelves.

There were tons of stuff—it was like moving R. H. Macy and Company, but I can’t tell you what fun it was. Dr. Shurtleff and each one of our workers, who usually work at their own special jobs, pitched in to sort out bundles of clothes, or carry yards and yards of worsted, or do whatever turned up. Dr. Shurtleff started us singing “Tipperary” as we worked, and we had a splendid time and accomplished wonders.

This morning when work began, there were the two front rooms all neatly arranged, with plenty of space and everybody happy.

Well, I must close, but I shall have enough to tell you when I come home to outlast many a wood fire, and I am looking forward to the day when we can sit down together and talk, with the clock faced toward the wall!

Much love to you always.