By August she had served her punishment and was released. Her one thought was to get back to her parents. She set out for Kiev. More than a thousand miles lay between herself and her goal. How she accomplished the journey even she cannot tell. The nights were very dark, she says; they caused her to fear greatly. She hid in woods. She slept on the bare ground. She lived on roots. Sometimes she thought that those dead children who had been shot in the square, accompanied her. By luck and cunning she made the last part of her journey to Kiev by rail. When she got there it was to find that the city was still in Bolshevist hands. She had no passports; if she had had them, they would not have served her. But how to get across the frontier into Poland? She took to the woods again, this fourteen year old girl, with her body that was a bag of hones, tattooed with scars and bruises. Growing feebler and feebler she struggled on. The last hundred miles were the hardest. But she urged herself forward by repeating, “Remember, you are Polish.” She does not know at what point she crossed the frontier, or how, or when. There are gaps in her memory and visions of blank fields across which moves a scarecrow figure; it must have been her own, she supposes. After that she forgets everything, till her father's arms were about her, and she was realising that he was as woe-begone as herself. That is one child's story. It could be multiplied by thousands. Her life was saved by the random generosity of some chance giver in America. I wish he could have seen her today, grateful and demure as she stood before me. I think he would have slipped his hand again into his pocket and before he counted his loose bills would have whispered, “Remember, you are American.” CHAPTER XIII—THE CASE OF MARKI Why does Poland starve? The question needs answering. In our secret hearts we people who have plenty, are inclined to suspect that the nations who suffer are purchasing their hunger with idleness. I do not pretend that the situation at Marki answers all the question, But certainly the reasons for the hunger there apply to very many towns which once were hives of industry.