The Red Rugs of Tarsus: A Woman's Record of the Armenian Massacre of 1909Gibbons, Helen Davenport
History
The Red Rugs of Tarsus: A Woman's Record of the Armenian Massacre of 1909
Gibbons, Helen Davenport
Adana (Turkey) -- History; Armenian massacres, 1909 -- Turkey -- Adana
Socrates interprets well when we go shopping. He is certainly a handy
boy. We help him with his lessons sometimes. When he cleaned our room
the first Saturday, he asked me "to arrange all those funny pretty
things," pointing to silver toilet articles, "just the way you want them
kept." When it was done, he spent a long time walking slowly around the
place. He memorized my arrangement, and has not slipped up a single
Saturday since. When we take a horseback ride Saturday morning, part of
the fun of that ride is the thought that when we get back to our rooms,
they will have been beautifully cleaned and everything will look just
right for Sunday.
On the outside wall of our bedroom, directly behind the head of our bed,
and covering the entire space between two windows, is a very large red
and blue _kileem_. On the floor are square blue rugs, just the shade to
make Herbert imagine my eyes are not green. On one side Mrs. Christie
has had two cedar wardrobes built in, and between them are a whole lot
of drawers, up to dressing-table height. Back of the door, leading from
the bedroom to the study, is a table where I have the First Aid outfit
Dr. Oliver Smith gave me for my wedding gift.
Socrates confided in me that he wants to be a doctor. He comes from a
Greek village in the heart of the silver mine district of the Taurus.
His father and mother died during an epidemic. He tells me that he knew,
young as he was, that if there had been a doctor in his village, his
parents might not have died; and that he had determined then to be a
doctor, so that other little boys might not lose their parents.
Doctor Christie told the boys in Chapel one morning that when they got
hurt they could come to me for bandaging. Herbert teases me about the
miles and miles of bandages in my professional-looking japanned tin box.
There is a wonderful case of medicine. Those I do not know how to use I
have put away up high on a shelf in case I might sometime lend them to
the doctor. The things I know how to use are kept in first-class order
by Socrates. I bought a little white enameled basin or two to be used
when I make dressings. For six weeks I have been taking care of an ugly
open sore on the leg of one of my students. It is a case of cotton
poisoning. These people get cotton poisoning by contact with the plant
at picking-time. I never heard of it before, but I used my head, cleaned
the sore with camphenol, and have dressed it with camphenol-soaked
bandages twice every day. I was rewarded after a week in seeing the
wound surrounded by a ring of nice clean flesh. The infected part has
been diminishing in size, and within the past few days is completely
covered with a layer of new skin. I am proud of this: for the boy could
not walk very well when he first came to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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