“Do you see the staging around our church there?” she asked, drawing me to a window one morning after I had persisted some time in my questions. “They are replacing with an _Ersatz_ metal the copper that was taken from the steeple and the eaves. Even the bells went to the cannon-foundries, six of them, all but the one that is ringing now. I never hear it without thinking of an orphan child crying in the woods after all the rest of its family has been eaten by wolves. _Ach!_ What we have not sacrificed in this fight to save the Fatherland from our wolfish enemies! We gave up our gold and our silver, then our nickel and our copper, even our smallest pots and pans, our aluminum and our lead, our leather and our rubber, down to the last bicycle tire. The horses and the cows are gone, too—I have only goats to milk now. Then the struggles I have had to keep the family clothed! Cloth that used to cost fifty pfennigs a meter has gone up to fifteen marks, and we can scarcely find any of that. Even thread is sold only against tickets, and we are lucky to get a spool a month. We are far better off than the _poor_ people, too, who can only afford the miserable stuff made of paper or nettles. America also wants to destroy us; she will not even send us cotton. And the wicked _Schleichhandel_ and profiteering that go on! Every city has a hotel or two where you can get anything you want to eat—if you can pay for it. Yet our honest tickets are often of no use because rascals have bought up everything at wicked prices. If we do not get food soon even this _Handarbeiter_ government will recommence war against France, surely as you are sitting there. The young men are all ready to get up and follow our generals. The new volunteer corps are taking on thousands every day. _Ach!_ The sufferings of these last years! And now our cruel enemies expect our poor brave prisoners to rebuild Europe. But then, _I_ have no right to complain. At least my dear own boy was not taken from me.”