<TITLE>08. Par 16-18</TITLE>L-16 And then when we got in there and started through, well, coming out of the dormitory there was a--a little girl stepped out. And they'd had orders if they seen me on the street not to say one word. Everything like that you know so we could get out, 'cause I was about to die. There's just... Imagine what a services that would be. And I'd get I...?... in the afternoon service, I'd get some of that old money that they had, go out there and buy a lot of candy, and I'd have a string of kids from here back out to the gate. I just love children anyhow.

L-17 And so that night going into, the little Finnish girl stepped out, her little ragged hair, and she had a little skirt on and little rags hanging down from it. And she had a--two crutches under her arm, and she had a great big brace wrapped around her like this and buckled in the back. And she had one leg was a little shorter than the other. And this right leg didn't have any use of it, couldn't use it. And she had right in the toe of her shoe, she had a strap and a snap. So the snap come up in a piece of leather went over her back and hooked over into this big brace back here. She had two crutches. And then these braces come up and braced this leg and made it strong. Then when she started to walk, she'd raise her little shoulder up like that and raise that little leg up, and set it out like that, with this strap would pull it up (There's no leader control of it.) and set it out; then she could walk. Her other leg was all right. She'd set her little crutches out like that, then she'd walk.

L-18 And when she stepped out and throwed her little crutches out, she looked at me; she bowed her little head; she thought she'd done something wrong. And I looked at that poor little fellow. I--I knowed she wanted to come to me. I looked at her and I stopped. The other two soldiers walked on. They turned around these other two that I couldn't... They couldn't speak a word of English, and I couldn't speak any Finnish. So they was trying to make me go on, and I just stood there. And I kept motioning them not to do it. And I looked at that child, no one in there but just--just the--the two--the four soldiers, myself, and the little girl. And she looked at me. She thought she'd done something wrong. I said, "You want to see me, honey?"
And she--she didn't, 'course couldn't know what I was talking about. And I motioned to her like that. And I watched that little fellow, and she come over, and she put her crutch out, and her little shoulder, and she moved over till she got right up close to me. And I just stood and looked at her, she what she'd do. And she got right up close to me. And she reached down and took a hold of my coat, and picked up my pocket, and kissed me on the pocket. Dropped her little--my coat down and the little... The word "thank you" is "Kiitos." And she stretched her little crutches out, and took her little skirt, and pulled it out like that, and she said, "Kiitos." And she looked up, and her little lips a quivering, the tears running down her little cheeks...
I come to find out she was a little war orphan. Her mother and father had been killed in the war. And--and they was just... She was just tossed about wherever she could.


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