The _atelier_ is truly a joyous place, set in a garden tended by the soldiers, and inside flooded with light. The walls are covered with models and designs. Some of the men were busy with patterns for lace and embroidery. Others were modeling. A legless soldier, in the trenches only a month ago, was already handling his clay with pleasure and skill. But the most remarkable work was that of a man who had lost his right arm. Before the war, like the others, he had been a “cultivateur,” never conscious of a talent that under the encouragement of a good teacher was developing astonishingly. With the pencil in his left hand, he produced designs of leaves, flowers and animals of great beauty. One of the strangest, saddest sights in the world is the workroom for artificial limbs. Here men who have lost their own arms and legs sit constructing arms and legs for their comrades who are to lose theirs on the battlefield. A soldier who had his right arm and all but two fingers of his left hand shot away, was filing, hammering, and shaping an artificial arm. A man with half of each forearm gone was able, by means of a simple leather appliance, to make thirty-five brushes a day. Here they were making, too, the gymnasium apparatus for the muscular exercises which help to restore the equilibrium of their own bodies. After visiting all the workshops, we went to one of the cheery cottage dormitories. It was noon-time now, and the men, deciding that we were apt to pass that way, had quickly decorated the front porch with the flags of the Allies, daringly binding our American flag with them! Then with a yellow sand they had written on the darker earth in front of the cottage: “To the Welcome Ones—the Brave Allies”—(again they had included us!) “we offer the gratitude of their soldiers!” XXII THE LITTLE PACKAGE One morning in Antwerp I saw women with string bags filled with all sorts of small packages, some with larger boxes in their arms, hurrying toward a door over which was the sign “Le Petit Paquet”—the Little Package. In the hallway many others were trying to decipher various posted notices. One black-haired woman, empty bag in hand, was going through the list marked “Kinds and quantities of food allowed in ‘Le Petit Paquet’ for our soldiers, prisoners in Germany.” This, then told the story—husbands and sons were in prison—wives and mothers were here! The posted notices, the organizations within achieved by 24 devoted women—the mountains of little brown packages each carefully addrest, approved for contents and weight, and ready for shipment—these connected the two sad extremes. This morning the receiving-room was crowded, as it is every morning, I am told. The directors had been standing back of the long counters since 7:30; women of every class pressing along the front, depositing their precious offerings.