nd, and nothing
belonging to it remained, still the land was there, and when seed to
plant the ground and the farming utensils and cattle were brought to
work it with, the faint spirit revived, the weak, hopeless hands
unclasped, and the farmer stood on his feet again.

When the cities could no longer provide the spades, hoes, plows, picks
and shovels, and the crude iron and steel to make these was purchased
and taken to them, the blacksmith found again his fire and forge and
traveled weary miles with his bellows on his back. The carpenter again
swung his hammer and drew his saw. The broken and scattered
spinning-wheels and looms from under the storms and _debris_ of winter
again took form and motion, and the fresh bundles of wool, cotton, flax,
and hemp in the waiting widow's hand brought hopeful visions of the
revival of industries which should not only clothe but feed.

At length, in early June, the great grain-fields of Diarbekir, Farkin,
and Harpoot valleys, planted the year before, grew golden and bowed
their heavy spear-crowned heads in waiting for the sickle. But no
sickles were there, no scythes, not even knives. It was a new and sorry
sight for our full-handed American farming men to see those poor, hard
Asiatic hands trying, by main strength, to break the tough straw or pull
it by the roots. This state of things could not continue, and their
sorrow and pity gave place to joy when they were able to drain the
cities of Harpoot and Diarbekir of harvest tools, and turned the work of
all the village blacksmiths on to the manufacture of sickles and
scythes, and of flint workers upon the rude threshing machines.

They have told me since their return that the pleasantest memories left
to them were of those great valleys of golden grain, bending and falling
before the harvesters, men and women, each with the new, sharp sickle or
scythe, the crude threshing planks, the cattle trampling out the grain,
and the gleaners in the rear as in the days of Abraham and Moab. God
grant that somewhere among them was a kind-hearted king of the harvest
who gave orders to let some sheaves fall.

Even while this saving process was going on another condition no less
imperative arose. These fields must be replanted or starvation must be
simply delayed. Only the strength of their old-time teams of oxen could
break up the hard sod and prepare for the fall sowing. Not an
animal--ox, cow, horse, goat, or sheep--had been left. All had been