One heavily whiskered old peasant of Kitsa made me see this injustice. We had crawled into Kitsa on the second night after the evacuation of Shenkursk, with the weather about twenty below zero and bringing with us ninety-seven wounded on sleds. The senior medical officer had selected the best houses in Kitsa for hospital purposes, and one could never forget how cheerfully on ten minutes’ notice those peasant people got themselves and their things out of the way and helped to get the patients in and warm and fed. Two of these houses belonged to my bewhiskered friend. He was something of a magnate in Kitsa. And it turned out that we were to use his houses for hospital purposes for months after that night, sending him and his on their northward way, for safety in the company of refugees from seven other villages. His property interests in Kitsa, however, were too important in his old life to be ignored and in a few days he was back with a sled convoy as a common driver, a labor which he persisted in as long as the fortunes of war permitted for the sake of the opportunity it gave him to look things over. Knowing that the hospital was an American affair the old man was quite delighted that his houses had been chosen for this purpose. "America dobra," he said to me exultantly. One day I happened to discover that in both houses the private rooms in which the precious family possessions had been stored and secured by heavy padlocks had been broken open and the contents looted and despoiled. Most of the fabrics and silverware and family gods pulled out of trunks and bureaus were of no use or interest to soldiers and had been thrown on the floor and trampled underfoot. It was wanton and heartless, and believing that our boys had at least had a hand in it I was ashamed and chagrined. It was painful to remember the gleam of faith in the old Mongolian eyes when he said "America dobra." When he came again and I saw him the gloom on his face was terrible. He had seen the wreck. Apologetically I offered my condolences: "America ne dobra." "No," he said slowly in Russian, "no, war is at fault. War is not good. America dobra." So I had to think again. I hadn’t seen far enough into the soul behind this bushy face. And I didn’t smile cynically as I handed him the cigarette. After a while we learned to discriminate between "Amerikanski" and "Amerika." The peasants often handed us personal compliments, but we learned that when they praised America they were not talking about us but about an idea, an ideal, a dream—would I could say a fact!