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
A door outside slammed. Then the door into Mary's room opened. In came
Mother Christie, looking as though she hadn't slept. The steel-rimmed
spectacles used indifferently by herself and Daddy Christie, were pushed
away up on her forehead. She said briskly: "Another baby! a dear little
boy, and not a rag to put on him!" I went to my steamer trunk to fetch
three little flannel petticoats and two kimonos. Down jumped the
spectacles without her putting her hand on them. "No, no, my child, I
cannot take them." Before I had pressed them into her arms, she had
finished her protesting. Away she went, murmuring: "Give and spend and
the Lord will send. That's what you think." Well, there may be time for
me to make more petticoats.
They say that eight hundred houses have been burned. Many people were
still in the houses. If they showed themselves, or tried to get out by
windows or roofs, they were shot. It was death either way. We fear that
few Armenians are alive in Tarsus outside of our compound and in the
Catholic Mission nearby. The whole Armenian quarter, right up to my
windows, is burning. The bright blaze persists in many places where
there is yet much to feed upon.
_Saturday afternoon._
We did not think of breakfast. Mary had fallen asleep again after
nursing the baby. I munched biscuits in my bedroom, and then I undid on
the bed the bundle I had made up in the night. The piece of flannel
might be needed sooner than I could use it. So I stretched it out on the
mattress, and cut four flannel petticoats. With the blinds barricaded,
my only light was what filtered through the slits in the shutter of the
side window. I had to keep doing something, and I did not want to go out
to talk to any one. So I found my thread and thimble, and began to make
up the petticoats.
It may have been minutes or hours. I shall never know, for I had not
looked at the clock when I woke. Suddenly I heard cries outside, that
were taken up by the thousands in the college yard. In the mingling of
voices I caught my husband's name. "Steady now," I thought. "Is this
life or death?" Then Jeanne's golden head appeared at my door.
"Herbert's here," said Jeanne.
I hurried out into the study, and ran to the window with Mary and
Jeanne. Daddy Christie and Herbert were at the gate, surrounded by
regular soldiers. But we did not see the tall figure of Miner Rogers.
Joy and apprehension were strangely mingled. I ran first to the door
leading to the balcony. Up the steps came Daddy Christie. Herbert and
Henri were behind, evidently trying to keep people from following them.
Daddy Christie said, "Thank God, you're safe: where is Mary?" I led him
to our study. People seemed to rise up from nowhere, crowding about us.
Jeanne had instinctively taken Mary into her own room, and Daddy
Christie followed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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