The Girl from Alsace: A Romance of the Great War, Originally Published under the Title of Little ComradeStevenson, Burton Egbert
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The Girl from Alsace: A Romance of the Great War, Originally Published under the Title of Little Comrade
Stevenson, Burton Egbert
Alsace (France) -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
"Yes," agreed Stewart, laughing; "I should probably kick and bite and
behave in a most undignified manner."
The girl leaned closer.
"Some of them did!" she murmured.
Stewart laughed again and looked at her with fresh interest. It was
something to find a woman who could preserve her sense of humor under
such circumstances.
"You have been doing the continent?" he asked.
"Yes, seventeen of us; all from Philadelphia."
"And you've had a good time, of course?"
"We'd have had a better if we had brought a man along. I never realized
before how valuable men are. Women aren't fitted by nature to wrestle
with time-tables and cabbies and hotel-bills and headwaiters. This trip
has taught me to respect men more than I have ever done."
"Then it hasn't been wasted. But you say you're from Philadelphia. I
know some people in Philadelphia--the Courtlandt Bryces are sort of
cousins of mine."
But the girl shook her head.
"That sort of thing happens only in novels," she said. "But there is no
reason I shouldn't tell you my name, if you want to know it. It is
Millicent Field, and its possessor is very undistinguished--just a
school-teacher--not at all in the same social circle as the Courtlandt
Bryces."
Stewart colored a little.
"My name is Bradford Stewart," he said, "and I also am very
undistinguished--just a surgeon on the staff at Johns Hopkins. Did you
get to Vienna?"
"No; that was too far for us."
"There was a clinic there; I saw some wonderful things. These German
surgeons certainly know their business."
Miss Field made a little grimace.
"Perhaps," she admitted. "But do you know the impression of Germany that
I am taking home with me? It is that Germany is a country run solely in
the interests of the male half of creation. Women are tolerated only
because they are necessary in the scheme of things."
Stewart laughed.
"There was a book published a year or two ago," he said, "called
'Germany and the Germans.' Perhaps you read it?"
"No."
"I remember it for one remark. Its author says that Germany is the only
country on earth where the men's hands are better kept than the
women's."
Miss Field clapped her hands in delight.
"Delicious!" she cried. "Splendid! And it is true," she added, more
seriously. "Did you see the women cleaning the streets in Munich?"
"Yes."
"And harvesting the grain, and spreading manure, and carrying great
burdens--doing all the dirty work and the heavy work. What are the men
doing, I should like to know?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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