Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

ney to Moscow for which the Riga stores provided long narrow loaves of bread, unsalted butter, cheese, canned fish, sugar and jam. A flask of water should have been included but that I was to learn later. More in accordance with the prevailing customs of the land and no doubt more sanitary would it have been to have carried a tea kettle with which to get boiled water at the stations along the way. Rica To Moscow The train from Riga to Moscow was made up mostly of small, light box cars carrying people as well as freight. There were also third class passenger cars with uncush- ioned wooden benches extending almost the width of the car. Directly above these was a second tier of seats or shelves to lie on. Further up still was another set of similar shelves for baggage, which were, however usually occupied by travelers who preferred this high perch to standing in the passageway day and night. Besides these, the train could boast of a few second class coaches with cushioned seats. The official termiology is “hard” and “soft” seats, not first, second, and third class. Attached to this train was a special car reserved for the first group of American Relief Administration per- sonnel. ‘The group was entering Russia under the leader- ship of Mr. Carroll. Several newspaper correspondents had happily been accommodated in the special coach. My place was in a fairly comfortable Soviet Courier car, sharing the compartment with one of the couriers, a very pleasant and agreeable young man of refined man- ner, eager to be of service to the foreign stranger. A fine hospitality to the foreigner is one of the marked traits 128 FEEDING THE HUNGRY of the Russian. On this same car was a young woman from Maryland whose interest in the great experiment in Russia had brought her across an ocean and a continent to observe at first hand the social readjustment that fol- lowed the revolution. Some time before she had been on picket duty at the White House. The car was nearly filled with men and women, apparently in government work. When we had crossed the border from Latvia into Russia, they threw off the mantle of reserve and celebrated by singing lustily the song of the revolution. At the border there was a complete change of train crew. The train moved slowly, stopping often and long. The locomotive consumed large quantities of wood, and belched out of its smokestacks showers of sparks whenever the firebox was refilled. The fuel supply on the tender had to be replenished quite frequently. Piece by piece the wood was tossed by hand from the heap at the side of the track to the tender. Occasionally some freight or bag- gage was loaded or unloaded. At each station there was generally a rush of passengers from the train to the boiled water supply. Tea kettles were the favorite containers, but if these were lacking anything else that would hold water would be brought into service. Because sanitation had for man