diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/63637-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63637-0.txt | 3533 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 3533 deletions
diff --git a/old/63637-0.txt b/old/63637-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 93b4efb..0000000 --- a/old/63637-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3533 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Village in Picardy, by Ruth Gaines - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: A Village in Picardy - -Author: Ruth Gaines - -Illustrator: Francisque Poulbot - -Contributor: William Allan Neilson - -Release Date: November 04, 2020 [EBook #63637] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: ellinora and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian - Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VILLAGE IN PICARDY *** - - - - - -A VILLAGE IN PICARDY - -[Illustration: A WELL-KNOWN TUNE] - - - - - A VILLAGE IN - PICARDY - - BY - RUTH GAINES - AUTHOR OF “THE VILLAGE SHIELD,” ETC. - - WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY - WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON - _President of Smith College_ - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - 681 FIFTH AVENUE - - COPYRIGHT, 1918, - BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - - _All Rights Reserved_ - - Printed in the United States of America - - - - -PREFACE. - - -The history and the work of the Smith College Relief Unit in the Somme -is known wherever reconstruction work in France is spoken of. This brief -account does not purport to give anything but a small cross-section, the -picture of but one of the villages in our care. It is told in the first -person to make the telling easier. As I have said, of all our villages, -Canizy was the most beloved. All the Unit had a share in it. - -The picture is given as it was seen day by day. What was true in this -section, may not be true in another. Here the German retreat was so -rapid that the devastation, though appalling, was not complete; whole -avenues of trees were left standing in places, and only two churches were -dynamited, by contrast with the two hundred and twenty-five destroyed -throughout the _région dévastée_. It was perhaps in more calculated ways -that the Prussians here vented their spite; in the burning of family -pictures, the wrecking of machinery, the cutting of the trees about the -Calvaries, and the taking away of the bells from the church towers. They -left behind them here, as everywhere, ruin and silence; a silence of -industry, of agriculture, of all the normal ways of life; a silence which -has given the plain of Picardy the name of “The Land of Death.” - - RUTH GAINES. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I UN VILLAGE TOUT OUBLIÉ 3 - - II LE CHÂTEAU DE BON-SÉJOUR 16 - - III M. LE MAIRE 35 - - IV O CRUX, AVE! 48 - - V MME. GABRIELLE 61 - - VI VOILÀ LA MISÈRE 74 - - VII NOUS SOMMES DIX 88 - - VIII UNE DISTRIBUTION DE DONS 100 - - IX EN PERMISSION 113 - - X A LA FERME DU CALVAIRE 129 - - XI LES PETITS SOLDATS 139 - - XII M. L’AUMÔNIER 151 - - XIII HEUREUX NOËL 162 - - XIV FIDELISSIMA, PICARDIE 176 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS[1] - - - A Well-Known Tune _Frontispiece_ - - Map of the German Retreat[2] 2 - - “They are over there” 12 - - “What, another little Brother!” 17 - - “Only that much Bread!” 44 - - “Is that wounded Man a Boche?” 51 - - “He is big already” 58 - - “I didn’t do that!” 63 - - “Once, before the War, the _Pralines_ were two for a Sou” 80 - - “A Cut of a Sword-scabbard!” 114 - - “If I were grown up!” 124 - - “Our House used to be there!” 132 - - “And do the little Boche children hug their Father?” 143 - - “Company, halt!” 148 - - “If it hadn’t been for the Officer....” 157 - - “He has not come. He has been mobilized....” 165 - - “Well, if we don’t see Santa Claus, we may see a Zeppelin” 171 - - “And if it freezes to-night?” 174 - - “Oh yes, Papa is strong!” 182 - - Plan of the Village 188 - - - - -INTRODUCTORY NOTE - - -No one, it may safely be said, can see this war as a whole. The nations -taking part in it girdle the world, and no people is unaffected by it. -Real knowledge can be gained of only comparatively small sections of the -conflict, and we are grateful to those who, knowing a small section, -give us a faithful account of their own observation and experience, and -refrain from speculation and generalisation. - -Among the infinitude of tragedies few have appealed more poignantly to -our imaginations than those involved in the devastation of Picardy; and -among the attempts at salvage few details have attracted the sympathetic -attention of America more powerfully than the efforts of the Smith -College Relief Unit. Their heroic persistence in the work of evacuation -under the very guns of the great offensive of March, 1918, made the -members of the Unit suddenly conspicuous; but the more picturesque feats -of that terrible emergency had been preceded by a long winter of quiet -work. The material results were largely wiped out; the spiritual results -will remain. It is the method of that work as carried on in a single -village that is described in this little book. When we have read it we -know what kind of people these were who clung to the remnants of their -homes in the midst of desolation. Their character and temper are depicted -with kindly candour; they were very human and very much worth saving. -When the time comes for reconstruction on a large scale, such an account -as this will be of value in enabling us to realise the nature of the task -and in teaching us how to set about it. - -Smith College is proud of what these graduates have done and are doing; -and this note is written to assure the Unit rather than the outside world -that those who have to stay at home see and understand. - - WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON. - -_Smith College, Northampton, Mass._ - - - - -A VILLAGE IN PICARDY - -[Illustration: THE GERMAN RETREAT] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -UN VILLAGE TOUT OUBLIÉ - - -As a relief visitor, in a Unit authorized by the French Government _au -secours dans la région dévastée_, I have lived recently in the Department -of the Somme. There I had in my care a village with a personality which -I venture to think is typical of Picardy. As such, I would present it to -you. - -It was on a winter’s morning, by snow and lantern light, that I traversed -for the last time a road grown familiar to me through months of use, -the road which led from our encampment, known as that of the “Dames -Américaines” at Grécourt, past the railroad station of Hombleux to -the hamlet of Canizy. It leads elsewhere, of course, this road; to -the military highway for instance, which has already seen in the last -three years three momentous troop movements: the advance and retreat -of the French, the advance and retreat of the Germans, and, again, the -victorious sweep of the French and British armies which reclaimed, -just a year ago, the valleys of the Somme. It leads to the front, that -fluctuating line, some twelve miles distant, in the shelter of which we -have lived and worked for the ruined countryside. It is an important -route, on some occasions choked with artillery, on others with blue -columned infantry swinging down its vista arched with elms. Officers’ -cars flash by there, and deafening _camions_. But for me, until this the -morning of my departure, it has led to Canizy. - -There is no longer a station at Hombleux, because the Germans destroyed -it. One therefore paces the platform and stamps one’s feet with the -cold. Down the track, from the direction of Canizy, the headlight of -the engine will presently emerge. All about, the plain lies white and -level; the break in the hedge where a footpath crosses the tracks to the -village is almost visible. In fancy, I take it, past a fire-gutted farm -house and eastward on a long curve across fields where the snow hides -an untilled growth of weeds. The highway which parallels the railroad, -recedes in a perspective of marching trees, till, topping a little -rise, a wooden scaffold stands clear against the sky. It was formerly a -German observation post. To the left, equally gaunt, rises the Calvary -which marks the entrance to the village. And beyond, cupped in a gentle -declivity, lie the ruins of Canizy, framed in snow. So I saw it last; so -all the way to Amiens, and from Amiens to Paris, as the train bore me -away, I saw it; so in its misery and its beauty, I would picture it to -you. - -You will not find my hamlet on any map of the _région dévastée_ with -which I am familiar; it is not listed among the destroyed villages of -the Department, although it was looted, dynamited and defaced, even -to the cutting of the oak trees about its Calvary. You would have to -search minutely in history for any mention of it among the King’s -towns of Picardy which became famous in guarding his frontier of the -Somme. Comparatively modern and quite insignificant, it lies beside a -tree-bordered, dyked canal, one of many which tapped the rich plain and -bore the produce of farm and garden to the market centres, of Péronne, -Ham and St. Quentin. To this canal sloped its fields of chicory, leeks, -pumpkins, potatoes, turnips, carrots and other garden truck. Crooked -lanes, brick-walled or faced with trim brick cottages, led from it back -through the village to higher ground. There, before the war, the _grands -cultivateurs_, such as M. le Maire, and M. Lanne, who rents the old -Château, would have ploughed and sown their winter wheat. - -In those days, Canizy had a railroad also, and I have heard how for -three sous one could travel by it to Nesle. It took only eight minutes -then,—but now! By it as well, one went more quickly than by canal to St. -Quentin or Péronne with perhaps a hundred huge baskets of vegetables -on market day. But the Germans tore up the bed of the railroad and -destroyed the locks of the canal. They blew up, too, the bridge on the -main highway which used to pass the Calvary at the foot of the village -street. Cut off, reached only by a circuitous and deep-rutted road which -is impassable at certain hours every day owing to _mitrailleuse_ practice -across it, Canizy lapsed into oblivion. As its mayor said on our first -visit, “Look you, it has been quite forgotten,—_c’est un village tout -oublié_.” - -In 1914, Canizy had 445 inhabitants. Of these, there were perhaps half -a dozen substantially well off, such as M. le Maire, possessing ten -hectares of wheat land, a herd of seven cows, four horses, thirty rabbits -and fifty hens. Besides, M. le Maire, or his wife, was proprietor of one -of the three village _épiceries_. Joined with him in respectful mention -by the townspeople are the lessee of the Château, and various owners -of property not only in Canizy but in the surrounding country. Of these -gentry, not one apparently had been made prisoner by the Germans. They -were to be found on their other estates, at Compiègne, at Ham, or in -Paris. Even the real mayor was an absentee, so that the acting mayor, -lame, red-faced and heady-eyed, was the only representative of landed -interests left in the little town. He had had, however, a dozen or more -neighbours scarcely less comfortably provided with worldly goods than -himself: M. Picard, for instance, who owned extensive market gardens -and employed six workers in the fields. He it was who did not suffer -even during the German occupation, for was he not placed in charge of -the _ravitaillement_? And though his friends the Germans took him away -with them, a prisoner, did not his wife and children live well on his -buried money, eh? _O, Mme. Picard, elle était riche._ There were the -Tourets, two brothers, who held connecting high-walled gardens in the -centre of the village, and their next door neighbour, the comely widow, -Mme. Gabrielle. Directly opposite ranged the Cordier farm, comprising an -orchard of 360 trees, ten cows, two bulls, one ox, eighty-seven pigs, -three horses, one hundred and fifty chickens, and one hundred and fifty -rabbits. Smaller cottages there were, some rented, but most of them -owned, where the families raised just enough for their own necessities, -or worked for their more prosperous townsfolk. There were the village -cobbler, the two store keepers who competed with the mayor, a sprinkling -of factory hands who walked along the dyke a mile and a half to work in -the brush factory at Offoy, and last on the street, but not least in -social importance, the domestics of the Château. There were, too, the -poor whom one has always; but in Canizy, so far as I could learn, they -consisted of but two shiftless families. - -The civic life of the village centred about its public school and its -teacher, and, of course, its curé and its church. The monotony of toil -was relieved by market days and fête days and first communions and -neighbourhood gatherings. Of these last I have seen a few pictures, -groups of wrinkled grandparents and sturdy sons and grandchildren stiffly -posed in Sunday best, yet happy in spite of it. Behind them pleached -pear trees or grape vines make an appliqué against a patterned brick -wall. But there are not many of the pictures even left, for you will -understand, the Germans systematically searched them out and burned them -in great piles. The one that I remember best, a poor mother had torn out -of its frame the night of her flight. “I could not think well,” she said. -“The Boches had wrenched my Coralie away—so lovely a child that every -one on the streets of Ham turned to look at her curls as she walked—but -I did save this. See, there she is,—how pretty and good, and that is -my eldest, a soldier. He is dead. And that, with the accordion, is my -seventeen-year-old Raoul, like his sister, a _prisonnier civil_. What do -the Boches do, think you,” she continued, “with such? One hears nothing, -nothing. Never a letter, never a message. Even when Mme. Lefèvre and Mme. -Ponchon returned, they brought no word. The prisoners, evidently they are -separated. One is told that they work and starve,—that is all.” - -A community so homogeneous in its interests, was bound to link itself -intimately by marriage as well. The intricacies of the family trees of -Canizy were a source of constant mental effort, as one discovered that -Mme. Gense was really Mme. Butin, that is, she had at least married M. -Butin, and that Germaine Tabary was so called because she was living with -her maternal grandparents, whereas her father’s name again was Gense, and -her mother was known by the sounding title of Mme. Gense-Tabary. “But -why these distinctions?” one continually demanded upon unravelling the -puzzles for purposes of record. “Because, otherwise, one would become -confused,” was the reply. - -[Illustration: —_Ils sont là!!!_ - -[They are over there!!!]] - -Such, peaceful, prosperous, yet stirred by family bickerings enough to -spice its days, was Canizy before the war. - -Canizy to-day numbers just one hundred souls, fifty being children and -fifty adults. It was in March, 1917, that the village was blotted out. -Two years and a half of German occupation preceded that event. In every -house German soldiers had been billeted; one sees now on the door posts -the number of officers and men allotted, or the last warning, perhaps, in -regard to concealed fire-arms. For two years and a half the inhabitants -had been prisoners, for the same length of time there had been no school -and no mass. Yet the villagers do not speak unkindly of their conquerors. -They fared better than many, for they fell to the lot of the Bavarians, -who are reputed to be more humane than the Prussians. Besides, Picardy is -inured to invasions, which for centuries have swept across her plains. -By them, fortitude has been inbred. - -But one day last spring, the Bavarians filed away northward. Prussians -succeeded them. Quickly came the order for the villagers to evacuate -their homes. At the same time, the able-bodied, men and women, youths and -maidens, were seized and held. Weeping mothers, tottering grandfathers, -and helpless children,—the remnant,—were driven forth with what scant -possessions they could snatch, to the town of Voyennes, four kilometres -away. There, huddled with the like refugees of other villages, they -remained ten days. From it they could see the ascending smoke, black -by day and red by night, and hear the detonations which marked the -destruction of their homes. They returned to the blackened ruins,—as, -in the words of a historian of the Thirty Years’ War, their ancestors -had done. “Les paysans,” he says, “qui avaient survécu à tant de -désastres étaient accourus dans leurs villages aussitôt que les ennemis -s’éloignèrent de ce champ de carnage. Mais, sans ressources d’aucune -sorte, sans habitations, sans chevaux, sans bestiaux, sans instruments -de culture, sans grains pour la semence, que pouvaient-ils faire? -Mourir——”[3] - -But our villagers, though equally pillaged in the year 1917, were not -doomed to death. The Germans had retreated before the advancing French -and British armies, and the ruins of Canizy ere long were held by -Scottish troops. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -LE CHÂTEAU DE BON-SÉJOUR - - -In Canizy, after the Germans were through with it, not one of its -forty-seven houses stood intact. Most were roofless shells, or fallen -heaps of brick. An occasional ell, a barn, a rabbit hutch, or a chicken -house,—such were the shelters into which the returning villagers crept. -Nor was there furniture. Pillage had preceded destruction and loaded -wagons had borne away the plunder of household linen, feather mattresses, -clothes presses, chairs or anything practicable, into Germany. Scattered -through the ruins to this day lie iron bedsteads twisted by fire, the -metal stands of the housewives’ sewing machines, broken farm tools and -fire-cracked stoves. One day, beside a half-demolished wall, I came upon -a group of little girls playing house. They had marked off their rooms -with broken bricks, set up for a stove a rusty brazier, and stocked their -imaginary cupboards with fragments of gay china. A grey, drizzling day -it was, and their toy _ménage_ had no roof. But was it more cheerless -than the hovels they called their homes, where their mothers, like them, -had gathered in the wreckage left by the Germans,—a stove here, a kettle -there, and a “Boche” bed of unplaned planks, perhaps, with an improvised -mattress of grass? I paused to regard the play house. “What is this -room,” I inquired. “_La cuisine_,” was the quick reply. “And this?” “_La -salle à manger._” “But this next?” “_Une salle à manger_,” came the -chorus. “Then all the rest are _salles à manger_?” “_Assurément_,” with -merry laughter. “O, I see. Are you then so hungry at your house?” And I -turned away with an uncomfortable conviction that they were. - -[Illustration: —_Encore un autre petit frère?_ - -—_Oui, un petit belge._ - -[What, another little brother? - -Yes, a little Belgian.]] - -One after another, if you listen, the Village mothers will tell of their -return; with what hope against hope they looked for some trace of -vanished husbands, sons and daughters; with what despair they realised -the utter ruin. “My cat,” said one, “was the only living thing I found. -She was waiting for me on the doorstep.” But those were fortunate who -found even the door sills remaining to their homes. Those who were -shelterless took possession of some semi-habitable corner of their -neighbour’s outbuildings, or even of cellars, and furnished them with -what they could find. As I went about among them, in an effort to supply -immediate needs, I was continually told: “That cupboard, you understand, -is not mine. I am taking care of it for Mme. Huillard, who is with -the Boches. When she returns, I must give it up.” “This bed,”—a very -comfortable one, by the way—“belongs to M. de Curé, whom the Germans made -prisoner.” “Those blankets an English soldier gave me.” “This stove”—in -answer to a query as to whether a new one would not be appreciated—“well, -to be sure, it has no legs, but one props it with bricks, _et ça marche, -tout de même_!” The boast of the Prussians in regard to their handiwork -was true: “Tout le pays n’est qu’un immense et triste désert, sans arbre, -ni buisson, ni maison. Nos pionniers ont scié ou haché les arbres qui, -pendant des journées entières, se sont abattus jusqu’à ce que le sol fût -rasé. Les puits sont comblés, les villages anéantis. Des cartouches de -dynamite éclatent partout. L’atmosphère est obscurcie de poussière et de -fumée.”[4] - -By the time of the arrival of our Unit, six months after the Great -Retreat, our villagers had recovered from the shock of their sorrow. They -had managed to save enough bedding and clothing for actual warmth; they -had planted and worked their gardens; they were used to the simplest -terms of life. This courage rather than the too-evident squalor, was what -impressed one on a first visit to Canizy. Dumb endurance drew one’s heart -as no protestations could have done. It made me long to make my home -among my villagers, so that I might the more quickly meet their needs. - -But this could not be, because every habitable cranny was crowded to -capacity. Hence it was that I lodged with the rest of the Unit, four -miles away, at the _Château de Bon-Séjour_. Again, you will not find my -château so called upon the map. It is merely a name that represents to me -six months of hardship, of comradeship and of some small achievement that -made the whole worth while. - -At the Château, then, but not in it, lived the Unit. For the Château, -a German Headquarters, and a most comfortable one, in its day, had -been wrecked in the best German style. There were seventeen of us, -American college women, to whom the Government had entrusted the task -of reconstructing thirty-six of the 25,000 square miles of devastated -France. Two were doctors, three nurses, four chauffeurs, and the rest -social workers. Among them were a cobbler, a carpenter, a farmer, a -domestic science expert; and of other manual labor there was nothing -to which they did not turn their hands. It was in the golden days of -early September that my companions reached the Château allotted them in -that indefinite area known as the War Zone, and became from that moment -a part of the Third Army of France. But I, for reasons best known to -the passport bureau of that army, did not arrive until October. The -seventy-mile run from Paris was made in our own truck, driven by two of -our chauffeurs. As we cleared the dusty suburbs and took the highway -northward, war seemed very far away. To be sure, we often passed grey -_camions_ rumbling to or from the front, or saw fleeting automobiles -containing officer’s whiz by. But the country, the fields of stacked -grain or of freshly seeded wheat; the apple orchards,—sometimes miles -of trees along the roadside festooned with red fruit,—poplared vistas -of smoke-blue hill and valley, with church spires and red roofs in the -distance,—all these spoke of peace. Even the air lay in a motionless -amber haze, spiced with apples and wood smoke and ferns touched by -frost. But suddenly war was upon us. As we topped a sharp rise we came -upon an empty dugout, about which stood a shell-shattered grove. Lopped -orchards followed, zig-zag trenches, a bombarded village set in fields -bearing no crop but barbed-wire entanglements and tall weeds turned -brown. The country became flatter as we hurried along, intent on reaching -the Château before dark. At intervals we made detours around crumpled -bridges. Occasionally a sentry halted us, to be shown our permits known -as _feuilles bleues_. By this time the sun was setting and caught and -turned to gold a squadron of aeroplanes. Like great dragon-flies they -coursed and wheeled and presently alighted, to run along the fields -to their canvas-domed hangars. In the after-glow, we could still see -occasional peasants or soldiers working late at ploughing with oxen or -tractors. But otherwise, mile on mile, the brown plain, dotted here and -there with scraggly thickets, lay deserted. - -It was dusk when we turned off the main road between the half dozen -dynamited farm-houses that once formed a tiny village, past the little -church, and into the gate of the Château. To the rear of this ruined -mass, set in a row as soldiers would set them, were the three _baraques_, -or temporary shacks, which the Army had made ready for us. Very cheerful -they looked that night with the lamplight streaming from open doors and -windows, and the smell of savoury stew upon the air. - -But morning revealed what darkness had hidden: the destruction which -this estate shared with the entire countryside. Of the noble spruces -and poplars, which had formed the two main avenues leading the one to -the church and the other to the highway, only a ragged line remained; -the rest lay as they had been felled, in tangles of crossed trunks. The -Château itself, an imposing building as one viewed it through the frame -of a scrolled wrought-iron gate, proved to be a rectangle of roofless -walls. The water-tower, draped in flaming ampelopsis, no longer held the -reservoir which had supplied in former days the mansion, the greenhouses, -the servants’ quarters and the stables. The greenhouses themselves, the -_jardin d’hiver_, and the _orangerie_, where were grown hot-house fruits, -retained scarcely one unbroken pane of glass. Dynamite had been employed -freely; but—an instance of German economy—the main roof of the greenhouse -had been demolished by the well-calculated fall of a heavy spruce. In -this same greenhouse were the remains of a white tiled tank, and a -heating plant which had involved the construction of three new buildings. -“_Voilà_,” said Marcel, the sixteen-year-old son of the gardener, as he -pointed it out, “the officers’ bath.” - -Marcel and his mother (whom, we think, the Germans left behind because -of her too shrewd tongue) still take unbounded pride in the place. Even -before repairs were made on her own cottage, Marie routed Marcel out of -a morning to weed the flower beds and to fence off what, by courtesy, -she calls the lawn. By this last manœuvre she renders difficult both the -entrance and exit of our cars. She also refuses to open for us the wicket -for foot passengers, probably because in the days of Mme. la Baronne’s -hospitality there were none. Here entertaining was done on a patrician -scale. A French officer who stopped in passing, told us how he was in -the habit of coming each year to hunt in season. There was a gallery of -famous pictures. In short, the Château of his friend, Mme. la Baronne, -was the show place of the countryside. “To think,” said he, as he pointed -to a sign still standing beside the gate, “to think that dogs were -forbidden,—and yet the Germans came here!” Marie, having been left by -her mistress in charge of the property, carries the responsibility with -seriousness. A letter arrives: Mme. la Baronne desires that the vegetable -garden be always locked, and that no trees be cut. It is she, doubtless, -who directs that the lawn be preserved. “Poor Madame,” sighs Marie, “she -little knows. Pray heaven she may never return to see what the Boches -have done!” - -With Marie’s and Marcel’s help, one can reconstruct from the ruins the -gracious comfort of the old estate, the hospitable kitchen, the chambers -warm in winter and tree-shaded in summer, the wide balustrades where -the guests sat in long summer gloamings, courting the breeze. It was -Marcel who pointed out the view one gains from the steps of the Château, -straight through gaping doors and windows, to the sundial from which -radiated the alleys of the grove: bronze oaks and beeches, golden plane -trees, spruces and tasselled pines. - -How is the beauty of that day departed! Half of the grove lies now a -waste of scrubby second growth and fallen timber, for here the Germans -employed Russian prisoners as lumbermen. No longer the huntsmen and their -ladies pace the alleys. Now, on almost any day you may see old women -dragging branches from the woods to the _basse-cour_, to be cut up for -fuel. Twenty-six of them, no men, and only two children, the wretched -villagers had found in the Baronne’s stables their only shelter after the -razing of their homes. - -Yet we entered the winter far less warmly housed than they. Our two-room -_baraques_ were supplemented in time by six portable houses which we had -brought from America; two we used as dormitories and the other four as a -dispensary, a store, a kitchen, and a dining room. Our furnishings were -of the simplest; camp beds, a stove for each building, a table, camp -stools, and shelves. Our wood—when we had any—was chopped by a vigorous -old lady who walked a mile and a half from the nearest village to do it. -Our laundry was done upon a stove a foot square in a small building known -as the Morgue: such having been its use during the German occupation. -Marie made our cuisine on her range in a hut which she had built into -the ruins of her cottage. Zélie carried food and dishes in baskets to -and fro from kitchen to dining room, a quarter of a mile apart. The one -luxury of our existence was hot water, prepared by Marcel in a huge -cauldron, and brought in covered metal pitchers to our doors. - -Only once did Marcel fail us, and that was because the rightful owner of -the cauldron left the _basse-cour_ for her newly erected _baraque_. She -requested our kind permission to transport thither her property. “There -is another cauldron at Buverchy, which I think you could rent in place of -mine,” she suggested. “It belonged to my cousin, Mme. Bouvet, and is now -in Mme. Josse’s yard. No one is using it.” Marcel was dispatched to make -inquiries, and later, with horse and wagon, to fetch the cauldron home. -But meantime there had dawned a morning when we were not wakened by the -clump-clump of Marcel’s sabots, and the setting down of the water jug -with a thud upon the frozen ground. - -For wood, we depended largely on the chivalry of nearby encampments of -troops, French, English, Canadian or American, to whom our need became -apparent. For food, we were supplied by the Army with our quota of -bread and a soldier, M. Jean, to fetch it. Vegetables and some fruit -we obtained from our villages, of which we had sixteen in our charge. -Often these were presents, thrust upon us through gratitude; nor could -we pay for them. Meat was plentiful in all the towns of the Zone, where -the Army was charged with supplying the civilian population with food. -Anyone, going on any errand, marketed; and the dispensary jitney, which -might have started in the morning with doctors, nurses, kits, and relief -supplies, often returned at night overflowing with cabbages, potatoes, -pounds of roast, bags of coal, and _bidons_ of oil. - -Our relief supplies came through more regular channels, largely from -Paris, where one member of the Unit devoted all her time to buying. -These were either shipped to the nearest railroad station, or sent by -the French Army, free of charge, in a thundering _camion_. We never -knew when to expect this last, nor what it would contain. Sunday seemed -a favourite day for its arrival. On one occasion, there were three pigs, -loose and hungry, and no pen to put them in; seventy-five crated chickens -followed, with the request that the number be verified, and the crates -returned. Such were the colonel’s orders. But, seeing that the Unit -carpenter had to construct a chicken yard, this command was modified by a -judicious distribution of cigarettes. Mixed cargoes of Red Cross boxes, -stoves, bundles of wool from the Bon Marché which had burst _en route_, -and sundries, were even harder to deal with. - -We had no store room. The _cave_ of the Château, seeping with tons of -débris which in places bent with its weight the steel ceiling, and open -along one whole side to the elements,—this contained our dairy, our -lumber, our fuel, our vegetables, our groceries, and our relief supplies. -It abounded in rats, cats, and bats. But such as it was, it was the -centre of our activities. By night often weirdly lighted with candles, -by day never empty, laughter rather than complaints floated from its dim -interior. Here we held our first store; here the children who had trudged -over from Canizy, Hombleux or Esmery-Hallon waited in line for their -milk; here were assembled and tied up the thousands of packages for our -_fêtes de Noël_. As winter advanced, we prepared for a day in the _cave_ -by encasing our feet in peasants’ socks and sabots, and our hands in -worsted mittens. The soldiers in the trenches had nothing on us. - -Whether at home or on the road, our days were long and arduous, and -seldom what we had planned. Even Sunday became part of the working -week, for then we attempted to entertain our official supervisors and -co-laborers, and all chance acquaintances. M. le Commandant of the Third -Army has dined with us; the ladies of the American Fund for French -Wounded, under whom we held our section, have come to call; the Friends -walk over from Esmery-Hallon where they are building _baraques_ for the -commune; a lonesome Ambulance boy who has tramped ten miles and must -retrace his steps before dark, drops in; a squad of Canadian Foresters -rides through the gate; reporters, accompanied by a French officer, -harry us with questions. But most frequent, and most welcome of all our -visitors, are our countrymen, the—th New York Engineers. They came from -home, those men, to be the first of our army under fire. But during the -early days of the autumn, their talk was not of their work, but of ours. -They brought us slat walks, called duck walks, to keep us out of the mud, -and wood, and benches, and stoves. They came with mandolins and guitars -and violins to give an entertainment to our villagers, and stayed for a -buffet dinner and dance. They sent their trucks to take us in turn to a -party at their encampment. But all that was before the Cambrai drive. -As we, in our _baraques_, listened night and day to that bombardment, -we little knew the heroic part taken in it by our Engineers. Surprised, -unarmed, with pick and shovel they stood and fought; and later, hastily -equipped with rifles, helped save the day for England on the bitterly -contested front. But you have doubtless read of them in the papers, for -they were the first of our soldiers to die in battle and to be mentioned -in the orders of the day. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -M. LE MAIRE - - -By rights, Canizy belongs with three other hamlets, to the commune of -Hombleux. The mayor of Hombleux is therefore in reality also the mayor -of Canizy. But each of the hamlets has an acting mayor besides. And, -to complicate this matter of mayors still further, the real mayor of -the commune has left his post to reside in his mansion in the Boulevard -Haussmann in Paris. Inquiring into the reason of his non-residence, I -was told that he was broken in health, and belonged to a political party -which, at the moment, was no longer in power. Hence the so-called mayors, -with whom rests the welfare of our villages. - -Before the war, the present mayor of Hombleux was one of the _grands -cultivateurs_. With Mme. la Baronne, Mme. Desmarchez and M. Gomart, -he owned most of the rich acres encircling the town. Hombleux itself -contained then about 1200 inhabitants, and was an industrial as well -as an agricultural centre, having a distillery and two refineries for -sugar-beets. Of the factories, practically nothing now remains, and of -the inhabitants, 250 have survived the German deportations. Zélie, the -kitchen maid, has told me of these last. “The first deportation,” she -said, “was one of five hundred. The officers came to the doors at seven -o’clock with the names, and told us to be ready to start at dawn. O -Mademoiselle, the night! All the neighbours ran to and fro; all night -we washed and sewed and ironed, and in the morning, each with a sack -of fresh linen, my father, my sister, M. le Curé,—the flower of our -village,—were marched away. And after, what weeping!” Zélie put down her -broom to wring her hands, as if still dry-eyed from too much suffering. -“The next time,” she continued, “the Boches gave us no warning. They -came at midnight, and dragged us from our beds.” “Did you then go?” I -inquired. “But yes,” she replied, and her eyes flashed. “They tried to -make us work; there were five of us, friends, from our village. But work -for the enemies of France? We would not! They put us in prison; they fed -us almost nothing, but we would not work. One day they summoned us. ‘Go,’ -they said, ‘go where you like, beasts of the Somme!’ Hungry, foot-sore, -travelling mostly by night from the frontier, we came home. It was -midnight when we reached Hombleux. In my own house, my mother had barred -the door. I tapped on the window to wake her. At first, she would not -believe that it was I. Even now, she looks at me with a question in her -eyes as if asking continually, ‘Zélie, is it thou?’” - -Our mayors have no such heroic past! They not only saved their own skins, -but reside to this day with their wives and daughters; comely daughters -of an age for the German draft. Of one it is more than whispered that he -is a spy. Many carrier pigeons he had in his dovecote, and whether there -were any connection or not, _he knew of the impending German invasion_, -and left his comfortable house and growing crops, to spend the summer of -1914 in Normandy. Nor did he return till the summer of 1917. Meantime, -his little hamlet had held a town meeting of its refugees, and elected -a lady as mayor. In fact, M. Renet, on his return, found himself the -only man in the village. He found also—a suspicious circumstance in -the eyes of his neighbours—his house the only one undestroyed. I have -talked with him there, looking out of his casement windows into a walled -garden, where the fruit trees are uncut, and the walks are still bordered -with close-trimmed box. He assumes an injured air, recounting his -unpopularity. It is unfortunate, but since M. the Deputy has again asked -him to act as mayor, _que voulez-vous_? He is compelled. - -His superior, the mayor of the entire commune, did not fare so well. On -our first visit, we found him inhabiting a loft in his partially ruined -barn. But despite his chubby person, this mayor is a man of action. -Week after week, Hombleux receives shifting regiments of troops back -from the trenches _en repos_. These are detailed for construction work. -Carpenters set up the _baraques_, which the Government furnishes to -homeless families; masons and bricklayers are slowly raising the walls -of the village bakery. The mayor has taken his share of the materials -and workmen, and is now housed in a two-room lean-to, with a new slate -roof, and lace-curtained windows. Here, beside an open fire, he transacts -business. - -He it is to whom returning refugees come to report and register; through -him claims of damage (based on pre-war valuation of property) are filed, -which the Government has promised to honor after the war. To him, -requests for _baraques_ are made, and sent by him to the _Sous-Préfet_ -of the Department, to be forwarded in turn to the Minister of the -Interior, with whom such matters rest. The mayor calculates the amount -of _allocation_ or pension to which each family in the devastated area -is entitled, varying according as they are _réfugiés_ or _rapatriés_, -according to the number of bread-winners imprisoned or serving with the -colors, according to the number of children, or, in some cases, to the -decorations won by their soldiers, for decorations carry pensions.[5] -This entire matter of income is adjusted finally for our district by the -_Préfet_ at Péronne. Besides housing and pensioning, the Government -has undertaken to supply a certain amount of cereals, coffee, sago and -the like. These the mayor distributes. Furniture as well is provided -by the Government: bedsteads, mattresses (not forgetting bolsters), -stoves, cupboards, chairs, tables and _batteries de cuisine_. Before our -coming to take charge of the district, the mayor signed the furniture -requisitions which were understood by the fortunate recipients to -represent a part of their “_indemnité de guerre_.” He also had the even -more delicate task of distributing relief supplies left in bulk by the -Red Cross or other agencies on their hurried passage through the ruined -villages. Naturally, the supply fell short of the demand; and it was with -unconcealed pleasure that the Mayor at the instance of the _Sous-Préfet_ -turned over these two thankless tasks to us. Yet we found him—or rather -his wife and daughter—always ready to advise and coöperate. On demand, -they furnished immaculately penned lists of all inhabitants, whether -grouped by sex and by age, by family, or by the main division of adults -and juveniles. They know the number of families in each hamlet, the -number of persons in each family, the name and the age of each. Much more -they know, of gossip, and of human nature, and laughed, I fear a trifle -derisively, at our manifest difficulties. - -All these activities, centring in the Mayor, belong to the civil -administration of the Department. The Ministry of Agriculture has -its share in reconstruction also, but is more independent of local -officials, having an office of its own in the commune. To it belong the -ploughing and seeding, the replacing of orchards, and to a certain extent -of livestock. But on all these matters, as to whose fields shall be -ploughed, or who shall plant two apple trees or own a goat, the verdict -of the Mayor is sought. He himself, you may be sure, is dependent on no -such circuitous methods. Together with two other _grands cultivateurs_, -he has bought an American tractor, a harrow, and a mowing machine. These -can even be hired for the same price as the government-owned tractors, -which is forty francs an hectare. Over all reconstruction, considered as -a part of the civil administration, preside the _Sous-Préfet_ and the -_Préfet_ of the Somme. - -On the other hand, food supplies in general, such as bread, are -controlled by the army. In fact, every detail of life in the War Zone is -their care if they choose to assume it. Troop movements delay shipments; -therefore there may be no bread. Cavalry needs fodder; the sergeant at -Hombleux goes out to forage with rick and trio of white horses and buys -it at a fixed price. Mme. N—— is ill; the army doctor visits her, and if -she seems to him a menace to the health of the soldiers, he removes her -to a hospital. In view of the military importance attached to the Zone, -the confidence of the French Government in giving over a section of it to -the care of a group of American women, wholly unacquainted with the task -before them, seems truly touching. - -[Illustration: —_Rien que ça de pain! Vous mangez bien chez vous!_ - -—_Ben ... on n’est pas des boches!_ - -[Only that much bread! You eat well at your house! - -Well ... we are not Boches!]] - -In fact, it seemed appalling, as I learned from day to day the problems -for which I was myself responsible in Canizy. Not the least of these was -its mayor. Unlike his _confrère_ at B——, M. Thuillard had not fled his -property until forced to do so with the rest of the villagers immediately -prior to the Retreat of 1917. During the occupation, he kept his store as -usual. And even though his horses and cattle, his fat rabbits and plump -chickens, were requisitioned by the Germans, they say that he was paid -for them. To see him, however, housed in a miserable hut, with a dirt -floor so uneven that the very chairs looked tipsy; to hear the complaints -of his querulous wife, and the references of his daughter to their former -comfort, was calculated to enlist one’s sympathy. Mme. Thuillard was ill, -and he was lame, and the daughter’s husband was a prisoner, and they had -lost heavily, because they had the most to lose. All this they told me -over the saucerless cups of black coffee which they offered me “out of a -good heart.” - -But when I considered the Mayor’s duty to his village, my own heart -hardened. Here is the entry I find in my notebook on my first survey of -Canizy. “Canizy, dependence of Hombleux, Thuillard, Oscar, in charge. -Curé of Voyennes has charge of the children; 4 k. away. No church, no -school, no bread, no water fit to drink.” There was something, of course, -in the Mayor’s own contention that the village had been forgotten; and -one could understand why the Curé came only to burials when one saw -him,—so ill he looked. But in M. Thuillard’s barn were two stout horses, -and two carts stood before his door. On his own business, he could -travel. “Why, then,” I inquired, “has he not fetched the bread supply -from Hombleux to which the village is entitled?” “Because he has nothing -to gain,” and the good wife I interrogated shrugged her shoulders and -laughed. “Look you,” she continued, “M. Thuillard is rich; 26 kilos of -money he buried, and it is not in sous.” This rumour, which gave the -one-legged Mayor something of the air of a land pirate, I heard on all -sides. Even the school teacher of Hombleux repeated it; and her husband, -an officer, nodded his head to emphasize his “_Oui, c’est vrai_.” - -Of one of our mayors, however, I would like to record nothing but praise. -Widow of a soldier, left with two little girls, and absolutely no other -possession in the world, she ruled our home village at the Château with -justice and dignity. She never complained. When at last the _baraque_ on -the ruins of her farm was completed, all except the fitting of the glass -in the windows, she insisted on moving in so that we could make use of -the space she vacated in our _basse-cour_. I met her one bitter evening -shortly afterward, as I was returning from Canizy. “Is it not cold in the -_baraque_, Madame?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” she replied, “but what would you? -It is so good to be at home!” - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -O CRUX, AVE - - -As the aeroplanes fly, Canizy is perhaps three miles from the Château, -or reckoned in time, half an hour by motor and an hour on foot. But by -either route, one turns into the village at the stark Calvary I have -already mentioned, with its half obliterated inscription: _Ave, O Crux_. - -At our first visit, despite our novelty, Canizy regarded us with -indifference. We seemed to them doubtless one more of those strange -manifestations of the war which had stranded them among their ruins. -Incurious, apathetic, they passed us with sidelong glances, and went -their ways. But this did not last long. The “Dames Américaines” did such -extraordinary things! They gathered and bought up rags; they played with -the children; they walked fearlessly, even at night, across the fields -to tend a sick baby; they slept—so the village children who had seen -their encampment reported—on _lits-soldats_. The village waked to a new -interest, and it came about that one expected to be waited for by the -gaunt old cross. - -Before my arrival, the routeing of our three cars had already been -decided. Three times a week the Dispensary was held at Canizy, and once -a week, on Monday, our largest truck, turned into a peddler’s cart with -shining tinware, sabots, soap, fascinators, stockings and other articles -of clothing, made there its first stop. On the seat back of the driver -and the storekeeper, or if there were not room for a seat, on top of the -hampers, went also the children’s department, consisting of two members. -While the mothers, grandmothers and elder sisters gathered at the honk -of the horn about the truck, the children, equally eager, followed the -teachers to an open field for games. Or, did it rain, I have seen them -of all ages from fourteen years to fourteen months, huddled in a shed, -listening open-mouthed to the same tales our children love, which begin, -in French as in English, with “Once upon a time.” - -But when, after a three-days’ inspection of our outlying domain, I -asked our Director for the village of Canizy, I was given charge of -all branches of our work there. This meant not interference but close -coöperation with the other members of the Unit already occupied with -its problems. Of all our villages, Canizy was the most beloved, not, -perhaps, because its need was greatest, but because its isolation was -most complete. No one could do enough for it. Were a sewing-machine to -be repaired, the head of our automobile department, a mechanical genius, -spent hours making it “marcher.” The doctors, with their own hands, took -time to scrub the children’s heads. They came to me with every need that -they found on their rounds, with the neighbourhood gossip, and with -kindly advice. The teachers gave me the names of children requiring -shoes; and, as the work developed, asked in turn for recommendations -in regard to opening a children’s library. To the farm department, I -made requests that we buy largely of fodder and vegetables, until we had -literally hundreds of kilos of pumpkins, turnips and carrots bedded for -us in the cellars, on call. To this department went also requisitions -that Mme. Cordier be supplied with a pig, or M. Noulin with five hens, -or Mme. Gense with a goat. Or, were there shipments of furniture to be -delivered, one called again on the automobile department, which even -through the drifts and cold of winter, kept at least one of its engines -thawed and running every day. - -[Illustration: —_C’est un boche ce blessé là?_ - -—_Non, M’sieu le Major, c’est le cheval du capitaine._ - -[Is that wounded man a Boche? - -No, Major, he’s the captain’s horse.]] - -It will be seen that our scheme of material relief followed closely that -laid down by the Government. Our method was simple: where the Government -supplies were on hand, or adequate, we used them; whatever was lacking, -even up to kitchen ranges costing three hundred francs, we attempted to -supply. In this we had not only our own resources to draw on, but to -a limited extent, those of the American Fund for French Wounded, and -to a much larger extent, those of the Red Cross. In a huge truck came -the goods from the Red Cross, driven by a would-be aviator who, when -asked his name, replied bashfully, “Call me Dave.” “Dave” was frequently -accompanied by another youth of like ambition, named Bill. And I will say -that they handled their truck as if it were already a flying-machine. -The first consignment of hundreds of sheets and blankets, the truck and -the driver, all were overturned in our moat. It took a day to get them -out. The next mishap was a head-on collision with our front gate. But -the last, which I learned of just before I left, will best illustrate -their imaginative turn of mind. Bill, the intrepid, having attempted to -traverse a ploughed field, left his machine there mired to the body, and -spent the night with us. He seemed a trifle apprehensive as to how his -“boss” would take this exploit. Willing workers, however, were Dave and -Bill. Unannounced, they came exploding up the driveway under orders to -work for us all day. And many a time have we risked our necks with them, -perched on the high front seat, careering along at what seemed like sixty -miles an hour. - -But for my part, my usual mode of travel was on foot, and my orbit -bounded by the Château, Hombleux and Canizy. In any case, even though I -went over by motor, I was dropped at my village and walked back across -the fields. As I grew better acquainted with the villagers, I came and -went at will, spending almost all the daylight hours—few enough in -winter—with them. Every one has heard of the mud in the trenches. The -clayey soil of our district, admirably adapted to the making of bricks, -lends itself equally well to the making of mud. Continually churned -by _camions_ and marching troops, it becomes on the highways of the -consistency of a purée, through which, high-booted and short-skirted, -one wades. It is therefore a relief to turn off by the footpath beyond -Hombleux, though it plunges for the first quarter of a mile through a -bog. Of a sunny day, birds sing in the hollow, wee _pinsons_ perched -on ragged hedges answering one another with fairy flutes. Farther on, -yellow-breasted finches dart over patches of mustard as yellow, and -sing as they fly. Raucous crows, whose gray-barred wings make them far -more decorative than ours, and the even more strikingly marked magpies, -darken in great flocks the newly ploughed and seeded wheatfields which in -increasing areas border the path. A sudden movement sends them whirring -like a black and white cloud against the sky. Often above them courses a -flier of another sort, a scout aeroplane probably, holding its way from -the aviation fields in our rear, to the front. It rasps the heavens like -a taut bow; by listening to the beat of its engines one can determine -whether it be French or Boche. For Boche planes come over us frequently, -on bombing raids; and sometimes one does not have to look or listen long -to know that an air battle is taking place overhead. The sharp reports; -the white puffs of our guns, the black plumes of the enemy’s; the glint -of the sunlight on careening sails high up in the blue,—it all passes -like a panorama, of which we do not know the end. Other sounds also are -familiar to us on our plain, when from the Chemin des Dames, or St. -Quentin, or Cambrai, the great guns boom. Like surges they shake and -reverberate; and when, as often happens, the sea-fog rolls in from the -Channel, one can well fancy them the breakers of a mighty storm. So they -are, out there, on our front, where the living dyke of the _poilus_ holds -back the German flood. - -The highway and the railway, these are the two most coveted goals of -the German bombs. For over them go up the trains of ammunition and of -soldiers and supplies. Both we cross on the way to Canizy. The railroad, -running between well defined hedges, would seem almost as conspicuous -an object as the tree-sentinelled road. But, so far, both have escaped -harm. Trains whistle and puff as usual up and down from Amiens to Ham. -Often I halt at the crossing, to wave to soldiers, who fill the cars; -sometimes I pass through companies of red-turbaned, brown Moroccans, -who are brought here by the Government to rebuild bridges and keep the -roadbed in repair. Over the track the footpath carries one, on over brown -stubble, to the Calvary and Canizy. - -As I have said, at the Cross one is awaited. Sometimes it is only one -little figure in black apron and blue soldier’s cap that stands beside -it to give the signal; sometimes from the wall on the other side of -the road, a half dozen girls start up, like a covey of quail. The boys -usually ran away, but the girls advanced to surround one, and dance hand -in hand down the street. But always before the Calvary there was a pause. -Brown hands, none too clean, were raised to forehead and breast with the -quick sign of the cross. One caught a whispered invocation. “But you do -not do it,” five-year-old Flore protested to me one day, with troubled -eyes. “Why do you not salute the Calvary?” “Teach me,” I replied; and in -chorus I learned the words which on the lips of the war-orphaned children -are infinitely pathetic: “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the -Holy Ghost.” - -[Illustration: —_Il est déjà grand!..._ - -—_Ben ... il a l’âge de la guerre._ - -[He is big already! - -Well ... he is as old as the war.]] - -It is not alone at Canizy that one finds the Cross, though by its -aloofness above the plain this one became impressive. By every roadside -stands a Calvary, sometimes embowered in trees, but more often stark -and naked, with the wantonly felled trunks about its base bearing -mute Witness to a desecration which respected the form, but not the -spirit, of the Christ. At Hombleux, three such crucifixes marked the -intersections of the village lanes, flanked by stenciled guide-posts: _A -Nesle_, _A Athies_, or _A Roye_. They cluster in the cemeteries, above -well-remembered graves; Where even the dead no longer rest inviolate, -since the Germans, to their unspeakable shame, have blasted open many a -tomb. Day by day, the obsession grows on one that these uplifted symbols -of suffering, stripped and mocked and defiled by the invader, typify the -crucifixion of Picardy. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -MME. GABRIELLE - - -Every village, everywhere, has its stronger characters, to whom the -community looks up, perhaps unconsciously. Canizy, having been deprived -of its normal leaders in the Curé, a prisoner, and the teacher, -transferred to the school at Hombleux, looked up in this way to Mme. -Lefèvre and Mme. Gabrielle. The former was the especial friend of our -medical department. In fact, she rented one of her two rooms for our -use as a dispensary, and her flagged kitchen was always open to her -neighbours and to us. Here I measured out milk to half the village, or -distributed the loaves of bread which we ourselves purveyed from the -crabbed Garde Champêtre at Hombleux. Or, had I neither the time nor the -patience, Mme. Lefèvre herself made the distribution, and gave me a -list of the recipients, and always the correct amount of neatly stacked -coppers in change. A shrewd face had Mme. Lefèvre, wrinkled by humour -as well as by sorrow. She had been taken away by the Boches in their -retreat, but later, for some reason unknown, was allowed to return. Her -three daughters, however, and her husband, all were in the hands of the -enemy. She lived alone, therefore, and busied herself in her late-planted -garden, and in her neighbours’ affairs. - -[Illustration: —_C’est pas moi!... c’est lui._ - -[I didn’t do it ... _he_ did!]] - -Most of them, it seemed, were related to her in one way or another, all -the Genses being of her kin. Of these there were Mme. Gense-Tabary, -already mentioned, and her swarming family of eight, bright and pretty -as pictures, and dirty as little pigs. She, lodged near the bank of -the canal, really had no excuse for this chronic condition, and was -encouraged to scrub by object lessons, clean clothing, and gifts even -of long bars of _savon marseilles_. I remember her yet, two or three -children tagging at her skirts, knocking at the door of my _baraque_ of -a Sunday morning, to tell me that she must have more soap. All the way -from Canizy she had walked to get it; and she did not go back without. -Mme. Gense-Tabary’s eldest daughter, known as Germaine Tabary, was the -sorrow of the village, even more than its daughters who had gone into -captivity; for she had become an earlier victim of the invaders, and with -her unborn baby was left behind. Mme. Marie Gense, another unfortunate, -was a niece by marriage of Mme. Lefèvre’s. Her husband was a soldier. -She had lived in a little cottage whose blue and white tiled floor I -often had occasion to admire, next the church. But being left with two -growing boys, and no resources, what was she to do? What she did was to -add to her family a Paul, and one bitter winter night which our doctors -and nurses well remember, a Paulette. “What would you?” she expostulated. -“I had no bread for the children; in this way they were fed.” That two -more months were added, and that her lean-to of ten feet by twelve could -not accommodate them, were facts which did not seem to concern her. And -of all good children, her two boys, Désiré and Robert, were certainly -the best. But Aunt Lefèvre looked upon her niece’s conduct as a scandal. -She was forbidden the kitchen, and it was even known that the quarrel -had come to the point of knives. With the children, that was different. -“Yes,” said Mme. Lefèvre on the arrival of the new baby, “Désiré may -sleep in the Dispensary if you so wish. It is your room; you pay for -it.” That Désiré did, though I had a bed put up for him, I misdoubt. But -Robert, happy-go-lucky Robert, with his head cocked on one side and a -smile rippling his brown eyes, even Aunt Lefèvre could not help loving -him. There was no question of his sleeping out, however, he being nurse -to the babies and to his mother as well. Another wayward connection of -Mme. Lefèvre’s was a sister of Mme. Marie Gense’s, known as Mme. Payelle. -She had three children as cunning as you could wish to see, clean—as -were Marie’s—and sunny-tempered. Their parentage also was a mystery. -But this blot did not rest by rights on the village escutcheon. Mme. -Payelle had been installed there by one of her admirers, a soldier _en -permission_; she really did not belong to Canizy. - -To keep her social position in the midst of these misfortunes was a -tribute to Mme. Lefèvre’s worth. She was always doing kindnesses, and -speaking to us on her neighbours’ behalf. Beneath her shed stood one of -the four _chaudières_, or washing cauldrons, which survived the general -destruction. These, varying in capacity from 50 to 250 litres, are an -indispensable utensil of housekeeping in Picardy. In them, week by week, -the soiled clothes are boiled. Not even the lack of a pump—and there was -only one left in the village—was so much deplored as the loss of the -cauldrons. In view of these two handicaps and the dearth of soap, the -squalor of the village on our arrival seems excusable. Mme. Lefèvre, at -least, did her share toward remedying it. Without charge, her _chaudière_ -was in constant use, and her shed became a neighbourhood rendezvous. - -It will be seen that all the Genses were by no means a bad lot, Mme. -Lefèvre being one herself. Of an older generation, and I know not of -what degree of kinship to her, is Mme. Hélène Gense, grandmother to Mme. -Gabrielle, that energetic, substantial young Widow, not Mme. Thuillard -nor yet Veuve Thuillard, but Mme. Gabrielle to all Canizy. In pre-war -times, she owned, through her parents and not by marriage, the most -central homestead in the village. There remain now only the arched gate -into the courtyard, the brick rabbit hutches, a heap of débris, and a -tottering wall. She and ten-year-old Adrien lodge, therefore, in the -first house on the left as you come past the Calvary, with Grand’mère -Gense. This ell, flanked though it is by the ruin of the main building, -is the most cheerful spot in the village. The narrow yard before the -door is swept; a row of geraniums blossoms beneath the windows. Above -all, there _are_ windows, two of them, and curtains at each. Outside the -door, if you are fortunate in the hour of your call, will stand two pairs -of worn sabots. Or perhaps the door may be open, framing Grand’mère, -bent almost at right angles, Mme. Gabrielle, and Bobbinot. Bobbinot is -a dog, iron-grey, smooth-coated, with a white band on his breast and a -white vest. He has no pedigree, his mistress assures me, but his brown -eyes and his square, intelligent head bear out her statement that he is -“_très loyal_.” All three welcome me; a chair is proffered near the fire. -Grand’mère sinks carefully into her low seat, Mme. Gabrielle sets on a -saucepan of coffee, and we sit down to chat. - -It is a pleasure to look about as we talk. On the mantel, to give a note -of colour, are laid a row of tiny yellow pumpkins; the floor is red, and -through the window peer red geraniums. In a cupboard beyond the stove is -a modest array of pans and dishes. Two panes of glass, like portholes, -pierce the wall to the rear. Beneath stands a sideboard, and a little to -one side, a round table. Not until the coffee was heated did I notice -that cups were set for four. - -“But have you another guest?” I inquired, as Mme. Gabrielle poured first -some syrup from a bottle, and then the steaming drink. “But no, only -Adrien. _Adrien, come!_” She raised her voice. Then for the first time -I saw the boy, head propped on elbows, poring over a book. The mother -regarded him indulgently. “It is a pity for the children that we have -no school. Adrien is apt; when the Germans were here, he understood -everything, everything. And when the Scotch came, he learned, too. I -myself try to learn English.” She brought forth from the sideboard an -English-French phrase book. “This I found in a house after the English -soldiers went away. It would be easy, but there is the pronunciation.” “I -will teach you,” I said, and we took up the words one by one, Grand’mère -laughing the while, pleasant laughter, like a cracked, old bell. But -the boy kept on reading and hummed a tune. “The children,” broke in the -mother, “they sing; it is well.” But presently the boy shuts his book -with a sigh and draws a chair to the table. “Did you like it, the story?” -I inquire. “Yes, it tells of America.” On the table, clear now save for -Adrien’s belated cup, is revealed an oilcloth map in lieu of a linen -cover. “Where, then, is America?” His finger traces the colored squares. -“Here is France, here England, here Italy, here Russia,—but America, it -is so far one cannot see it.” “But yes,” rejoins his mother, “so far that -never in my life did I expect to see an American. Once in my childhood I -remember looking at a picture of M. Pierpont’s bank in New York—a great -bank. But now I have seen Germans, Russians, English, Moroccans,—and you. -The war teaches many things.” - -“You have seen Russians?” - -“Very many; the Germans worked our fields with Russian prisoners. A -strange people! You and I converse; we come from different countries, -but we have ideas in common. The Russians were like dumb beasts; they had -no _esprit de corps_.” - -“It is the fault of their government,” I venture. - -“Yes,” she replied, “France and America are republics. It is not that our -government is perfect. There are many beautiful things in France, but -there is much injustice also, much.” - -I knew of what Mme. Gabrielle was thinking, then; of the wheatlands of -Canizy, where not one furrow had been turned for the next year’s harvest, -while the _grands cultivateurs_ and the petty politicians looked out for -themselves; and of the school building, long promised and still delayed. - -But Mme. Gabrielle looked beyond the confines of her small village -and its grievances. Love for _la belle plaine_ and _la belle France_, -unreasoning, passionate, pulsed in her. Hatred of the Germans was its -corollary. “Mademoiselle, during the occupation, we were prisoners,” she -said. “We had to have passes to go one fourth of a kilometre from our -village. My mother was sick at Voyennes,—and I could not go to see her.” -It came out that Bobbinot had been her constant companion. “But I should -think,” I said, “that the Germans would have taken him away.” “They dared -not; he would have bitten them!” was the spirited response. - -At Mme. Gabrielle’s table, with the map upon it, I was destined to sit -often, sometimes for luncheon and sometimes for dinner, while we took -counsel over village affairs. For Mme. Gabrielle, together with Mme. -Lefèvre, and the former school teacher, became an informal advisory -committee to me. Through punctiliously served courses of soup, stew, -salad, wine, cheese and coffee, Mme. Gabrielle offered her information, -or, when asked, her opinion. It was she who reassured me on the point of -selling rather than of giving the smaller articles we distributed. “I -understand completely; it is better for us. The American Red Cross did -the same when the Germans were here. They sold the food, but very cheap. -Without their help, we should have starved. We are grateful to America, -which saved our lives.” It was she who advised in regard to a baby whom -its half-witted mother had placed in a crèche: “For the mother,” she -said, “it would doubtless be better that the child returned. But for the -child—and I am a mother myself who speak—let it remain.” On the good -sense and the good heart of Mme. Gabrielle one came to rely. Even as far -as Hombleux she was known and respected. “O yes,” the women there told -me, “Mme. Gabrielle, we know her. She is _une femme très forte_.” - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -VOILÀ LA MISÈRE - - -Directly opposite Mme. Gabrielle lives Mme. Odille Delorme. One lifts the -latch of a heavy wooden gate to enter her courtyard. On left and right -are the remains of barn and stable, from the rafters of which depend -bundles of _haricots_ hung to dry. A half dozen chickens scurry from -under foot, and at the commotion Mme. Delorme steps out. “I have come -to make a little visit,” I begin. “Enter then, and see misery,” is her -reply. It is a startling reply from this woman, strong, intelligent, and -direct. The room of which she throws open the door is tiny; the floor is -of earth; there is no window, only a hole covered with oiled linen, which -lets in a ray of light but never any sun. A stove, a table, two stools, -a shelf or two and a few dishes hung on nails are her furnishings. In -her arms she holds her sixteen-months’ baby; a little girl of three comes -running in from an adjoining alcove, and is followed presently by her -seven-year-old sister, Charmette. The three children look like plants -blanched in a cellar. As gently as possible, I proceed with necessary -questions: for in social parlance, I am making a preliminary survey of -the family needs. “Your husband?” I inquire. She turns to her little -girl, “Marie, tell the lady, then, where is Papa.” And Marie, smiling up -into her mother’s face, repeats her lesson proudly, “_Avec—les—Boches_.” -“_Avec les Boches_,” reiterates the mother, and catches the child to her -in a passionate embrace. There is a pause before I can continue. “Have -you beds and covers?” “See for yourself, Mademoiselle,” and she leads the -way through her _ménage_; three passage-ways opening the one into the -other, like the compartments of a train. The first contains a child’s bed -of white enamel, and beneath an aperture like that in the outer room, -a crib. Both are canopied and ruffled in spotless white. “Yes,” Mme. -Delorme says in answer to my unspoken surprise, “I bought these beds. -The ruffles are made of sheets, one can but do one’s best. As you see, -it is only a chicken-house after all.” Beyond, quite without light, is a -space occupied by her own bed, a springless frame of planks. From nails -in the walls clothes of all sizes and descriptions hang. In fact, one -wonders at the amount of clothing saved by the panic-stricken peasants in -their flight. They not only took away with them heavy sacks made out of -sheets, but buried what they had time to. Of course, some of their hiding -places were rifled; but most of the villagers have a real embarrassment -of riches in their old clothes. Their first request is usually for a -wardrobe, so that the mice will not nest in them. - -But Mme. Delorme asked for nothing. She rested her case in the simple -statement, “Voilà la misère.” At a later date, when I returned with a -camera, she repeated, “What would you? Take a picture of our misery?” -“Yes, Madame, to carry with me to America, that they may see it there and -fight the harder for knowing what the Boches have done.” “_Eh, bien!_” -she replied, and the picture was taken. Framed in the deep gateway, from -which the clusters of dried beans depend like a stage curtain, her baby -in her arms, her two little girls clinging beside her, and neighbourly -Adrien, broom in hand, sweeping the light snow from the path,—I see her -yet amid the ruins, brave, broken-hearted Odille Delorme. - -Before the war, Mme. Delorme had not the social position of her -neighbour, Mme. Gabrielle. She lived on her smaller property, and -attended to her truck garden and her poultry yard and her children, while -her husband served the Government as bargeman on the canal. Yet the -two were close friends. Mme. Gabrielle having bought a cow, shared the -milk with Mme. Delorme. Mme. Gabrielle told me that Mme. Delorme needed -blankets. “She would never admit it,” she explained. “We are not used to -accepting gifts, you see.” Or were it necessary for Mme. Delorme to go to -Ham perhaps for her _allocation_, Mme. Gabrielle transferred the baby and -Marie to her kitchen until their mother’s return. - -From this extreme end of the village, by the Calvary, the street -continues across the railroad track. Here, on almost any day, children -may be seen digging miniature coal mines. They do it not in play, but in -earnest. The ties which the Germans left have long since been used as -fuel, but in the roadbed the villager still finds a scant supply of coal. -Beyond the track, the first habitable building is a barn. Its interior -consists of one room, earthen-floored where two makeshift beds allow it -to be seen. In one corner stands a small stove. No light enters except -from the open door. Here lodge the old mother, the married daughter, two -children, a girl of seventeen and a boy of eleven, and their orphaned -cousin, four-year-old Noël. Lydie, capable, red-cheeked, crisp-haired, -welcomes us and pulls forward a bench. “Be seated, please.” Her voice has -a ring of youth, her mouth a ready smile. One wonders how it can be, yet -it is so. The grandmother complains querulously from the untidy bed where -she is lying to keep warm. Lydie tells us with perfect equanimity that -she herself has no bed. Where does she sleep? On the bench. Beds would be -welcome, yes, and sheets and blankets. The grandmother adds a request for -warm slippers; her feet are so often cold. A pane of glass for the door -I set down also in the list in my notebook, and as assets—the furniture -being negligible—300 kilos of cabbages, 100 kilos of potatoes, leeks and -chicory in smaller quantities. - -[Illustration: —_Avant ... quand c’était pas la guerre ... on en avait -deux pour un sou, des pralinés!_ ... - -[Once, before the war, the pralines were two for a sou.]] - -My next call I have been urged to make by our doctors. Here in a -ramshackle ell, facing a court deep in mire, live the poorest family -in the village, comprising Mme. Laure Tabary, her six children, and a -black and bearded goat. The goat inhabits a rabbit hutch from which -her tether allows her the freedom of the narrow brick path. From the -sidelong gleam in her eyes, one always expects an attack in the flank or -rear. But Madame, her mistress, regards her as a pet; perhaps because she -cannot regard her in any other favourable light,—since _la petite_ gives -no milk. Once past the goat, the door is quickly gained. Two rooms has -Mme. Tabary, and a loft and a shed. She needs them! From forlorn Olga to -forlorn Andréa, the girls of the family descend in graduated wrappings -of rags. “O, Mme. Tabary,” exclaimed the school teacher, with whom I -discussed the all too evident need of soap, and of clothing, “she is a -very worthy woman, but she is always poor.” Always poor, always ailing, -yet always humorous, were the Laure Tabarys. Did the unfortunate woman -try to boil her washing, the stove must needs break, and the cauldron -full of scalding water descend upon Madeleine. No sooner were her wounds -dressed than Andréa developed a fever. It would be interesting to know -how many litres of gasoline were consumed by us in the carrying of Mme. -Tabary’s children to and from hospitals located ten and twenty miles -away. One would have thought the distracted mother might welcome these -deportations. But, naturally enough, she distrusted them, and having -faithfully promised to give up the baby to our care on a certain day, -left instead for Ham. Of how she was won over,—that is a tale which -belongs to the annals of the medical department rather than to me. But I -have heard rumours of hair ribbons and dolls and candy and fairy stories -and I know not what of similar remedies which Hippocrates and Galen never -mentioned. Judge, then, whether our doctors were bugbears or no among the -children of our villages! - -But the ell housed another family besides the Tabarys. Across the hall -lodged the Moroys; M. Edouard, an old man of eighty-four, his niece and -nephew and his granddaughter, Mlle. Suzanne. All lived in the one room. -It was a room with only three corners as well, because in the fourth the -floor rose in an arch which indicated the cellar-way. In this room were -three beds, a table, a stove, three chairs and a broken sewing machine. -Yet I never saw the room in disorder, nor heard any requests from the -family beyond that of a little sugar for Grandpère, and, if possible, -another bed, so that Charles might have a place to sleep. Meantime, -Charles slept upon the floor. In this room were two windows. The one to -the south interested me by chance, because the panes looked so clear. I -stepped over and put out my hand. It went straight through the framework; -there was no glass. “But you must be cold!” I exclaimed, knowing well the -common fear of _courants d’air_. Besides, it was late October, and the -nights were already frosty. “Yes, a little,” Mlle. Suzanne admitted in a -matter of fact way. “Yes,” agreed her aunt, in a more positive tone. “And -besides, Mademoiselle, our stove is too small, as you see. In fact, it -is not ours, but belongs to Mme. Tabary. But she has so large a family, -we made an exchange. Perhaps when you distribute stoves——” I promise to -remember, wondering the while if we in like circumstances would share our -last crusts with like generosity. For the window, so scarce was glass, -oiled linen was the best that could be done, a pity considering that it -excluded the sun with the cold. - -Mlle. Suzanne, with the exception of Germaine Tabary and Lydie Cerf, -is the only young woman in Canizy. She had been taken captive by the -Germans, but was allowed to return. Her family, however, met an unknown -fate; father and brother, they were _avec les Boches_. A curious -circumstance in this connection was that Suzanne, having been an -independent worker, received no pension for her loss. She, too, seemed a -Good Samaritan to her neighbours—lame Mme. Juliette depends on Suzanne -to bring her her pitcher of milk; Mme. Musqua, sick and irresponsible, -has only to send over her children to Mlle. Suzanne to be cared for,—what -matter two more or less in the crowded room? I added my quota to her -labours by asking her to take charge of washing rags, and started her in -with those of her next-door neighbour, Mme. Tabary. For the purpose, I -have given her a cylindrical boiler, standing three feet high. This, when -not in use, is placed over by the cellar-way. On washing days, it is set -on an open fire in the court, where Grandpère feeds it with laboriously -chopped twigs. Meantime, back of the house, patches of colour and of -flapping white begin to adorn the wire fence. Suzanne also sews, by hand -and, now that its frame is mended by I know not how many screws in the -warped wood, by machine. We give out the sewing, and she earns by it -perhaps three francs a week. - -Beyond the Moroys, lives Mme. Thuillard, Charles, as the neighbours call -her to distinguish her from the Thuillards, O. I have seldom found this -energetic lady at home, but I often see her, and sometimes hear her, -as she passes with firm step down the street to work in her garden. -When not playing, her ten-year-old granddaughter Orélie follows in her -wake. This leaves in the unlighted recesses of the barn, her husband, -M. Charles. He seems an apologetic and conciliatory soul, with whom I -discuss domestic needs, such as a window, a lamp, and sheets for the -beds. He will tell his wife what I say and report to-morrow when he -comes for the milk. It is in his entrance-way, so to speak, that I first -noticed a pile of willow-withed market baskets. “O, yes,” he said, “I -had hundreds of such, but the Boches took them.” “Are they then made -hereabouts?” “Before the war; but now no one is left who understands the -trade.” The next day I am likely to get a report, and a sharp one, from -Madame, his wife. “Sheets,” she queries, “what sort of sheets? Are they -linen sheets? Blankets. Are they wool? Are they white? Look you, before -the war, I had five dozen linen sheets and plenty of blankets and down -quilts of the finest quality. Keep your gifts about which you make so -much talk! I will have none of them, none of them at all!” - -I have sometimes wondered if Madame were related to the contrary-minded -but equally independent wife of the _garde champêtre_ who distributes—or -not—at her pleasure, the communal supply of bread. “I hear,” she began -one day, as I waited for change for a hundred franc note—change which -came in gold, by the way, as well as in silver—“I hear that you are to -make a distribution of gifts. Do not forget me! I will receive anything, -but you understand, not for payment; only as a present. Behold,” this -with a playful slap on the shoulder, “any one will tell you that I have a -tongue. _O, là, là, là!_” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -NOUS SOMMES DIX - - -It was at Christmas time that we came most to realise the broken family -circles in all our villages. There was not one household which did not -have some hostage _avec les Boches_. Of the pitiful remnant, the old -men—there were no young ones—were to me the most appealing. I shall never -forget the fête in the hill village of Douilly, well up to the front, a -village completely destroyed, whose inhabitants were living in cellars. -On the brow of the hill, facing the sunset, stood the white stone -church. It had been used by the Germans as a barracks, and had not been -reconsecrated, so that we were given permission to hold our party there. -Cold, bare, yet beautiful with the sunlight falling in rainbow colours on -the groined arches, was the old church. At the bases of the pillars, we -deposited our sacks of presents; most of them for the children, but one -each for the women and the men. The latter were in my charge. Only three -came hobbling up from the outskirts of the crowd. “But is this all?” -I asked, as they chose the size of package which seemed to each most -desirable. “Are there no other men in the village?” The old men consulted -together. “There is Grandpère Cordon,” suggested one, “and Jean, who has -rheumatism,” “and blind Pierre——” “_Nous sommes dix_,” came the answer, -finally. “Shall we take the presents to the rest?” - -“_Nous sommes dix!_” It was the answer which might have been made in -Canizy. According to the number of inhabitants, it might represent the -proportion of the male population left anywhere in the _région dévastée_. -Not one was able-bodied. In Canizy there were, for example, the lame -mayor of whom I have spoken; his four contemporaries, verging on sixty, -one a heavy drinker, another one-armed, a third in need of an operation, -a fourth suffering from heart disease. Even the latter had been taken -away, but as he said, when the German doctor put down his ear to listen, -he threw up his hands, and gave the officers a good piece of his mind for -having imported a useless consumer of food. So he was encouraged to make -his way back. - -Of an older generation are two of the servitors of the Château, the -one the feeble gardener, the other the bedridden husband of the -laundress, who has not worked for many years. There is M. Tabary also, -the grandfather of Germaine, who has his own peculiar sorrow in his -granddaughter’s visible disgrace. A Boche baby will never outlive its -stigma while the memory of the Great War remains. M. Tabary is sick and -frail. It was he who, persuaded at last to come to the Dispensary, paused -in going out to doff his old cap with a courtly bow and to address the -doctors with a “_Merci, mes demoiselles, merci; je suis content_.” - -It was a fortunate circumstance, however,—for I cannot think it -intentional on the part of the Germans—that all of these old men, more -or less in need of care, had either wives or other feminine relatives to -give it to them. Not so circumstanced was M. Augustin. Smooth-shaven save -for a white fringe of beard, his fresh-coloured but anxious face appeared -one day at the Château. Thither he had gone to deliver a load of hay. -But the particular lady who had contracted to buy it being unexpectedly -absent, M. Augustin was disturbed. His language gave one an impression -of vigour which was borne out by subsequent acquaintance. On the saint’s -day of the village, he shared honours with young Lydie in being the life -of the party, by contributing a song and a quaint peasants’ dance. He -was to be met with frequently along the roads, with blue-visored cap, -brown corduroys and stout cane. As his neighbours said: “_M. Augustin, -il voyage toujours partout_.” Still, he took time to do chores, like -chopping wood for Mme. Juliette, to hoe in his garden, and to keep his -house. The latter was, strictly speaking, a shed. It had two windows, -however, through which, in the absence of the owner, I made inventory. A -broken stove was propped against a home-made chimney; a plank table stood -beneath the window; a chair, and a rough chest completed the furniture. -On the table, instead of a lamp, was a bottle containing a candle; beside -it were a bowl and a frying pan. - -Chiefly from the neighbours, I learned that M. Augustin was a widower, -that he had been the village cobbler, and that he preferred to live -alone. Now, we had shoe-making tools among our stores, so one day I -asked him if he would not like some. “No, Mademoiselle, I thank you,” -he replied. “My eyes are no longer clear; I cannot see well.” I was -more successful with other suggestions, however. A little nest of -dishes pleased him greatly; a new stove was installed, and a bed, and -what was perhaps even more greatly appreciated, a lamp. The evidence of -his appreciation took the form of whitewash on walls and ceiling; the -cobwebs vanished from the windows; and a shelf appeared for the dishes -behind the stove. It may be that M. Augustin will now be more content -with his own fireside, and less drawn to visit the wineshops of Ham and -Nesle. - -I never saw M. Augustin at mass, where the village transformed itself on -occasion from weekday caps and kerchiefs and sabots to its conventional -and unbecoming best. Therefore I must needs infer that his face was -shaven daily, and his suit always clean, for his own satisfaction. The -moral stamina shown by this is noteworthy, and characteristic of the -peasantry of our district. We ourselves in our living conditions found -cleanliness next to godliness in this respect at least, in that it was -hard to attain. But _cui bono_ seemed never to have disturbed the habits -of M. Augustin. - -Another sprightly old gentleman was M. Touret. His quarters were more -spacious than those of his neighbour, for he lived in a barn. Overhead, -hay piled from eaves to roof-tree helped to keep out the cold, and there -was one window. As he himself said when asked if he wanted anything: -“What would you? I am warm; I have a chair, a stove and a bed. If -the young people were here—perhaps. But we who are old, we shall not -live long, we have enough.” M. Touret, however, did not live alone. -The mother of his son’s wife had taken pity on him after the Germans -deported his two sons and their families, and had invited him to share -her barn. There were three housed there altogether, for with them lived -her son. M. Touret was oftenest found on a bench between the window and -the stove, poring through his spectacles over the daily paper. Mme. -Clara was usually busy with some savoury cooking, and M. Albert on the -occasion of my first visit held the centre of the floor with saw-horse -and axe. A chair was offered at once, and we all sat down to talk. M. -Touret, however, kept glancing at his paper, or regarded us over the rims -of his spectacles. Presently he broke in: “As for you, I do not know -what you may be, but as for me, I am a Christian.” In the midst of a -conversation about fodder and furniture, the effect was arresting, until -one realised from his point of view the strangeness of our position. -What, he must have queried, are these young American women doing here? We -were certainly different from the French ladies of family who nursed the -soldiers, or took over whole communities to house and feed. French women -would never have walked as we did, muddy-shoed and knapsacked, alone over -the fields. They might have been more understanding, at least their ways -would have been more conventional and better understood. - -In fact, on another occasion M. Touret asked me why I had come to France. -“Monsieur, my father was a soldier; I cannot fight, but in this war I, -too, want to help.” “Your father was a soldier? Ah yes, that would be -in the Civil War, in ’64—I remember it well. And what rank did he hold? -Was he a general?” “But no, Monsieur; only a common soldier.” “A common -soldier?” He thought a moment. “But not like ours, because in America you -are not a military nation, and depend on volunteers.” My face must have -expressed astonishment. “Look you, Mademoiselle; before the war it was my -habit to read. I read every year as many as two hundred volumes. I had a -large library in a cabinet. The Germans burned my books.” He rose, picked -up something from a bench behind the stove and handed it to me. It proved -to be a charred and mildewed copy of a history; the history of England -in the time of Henry the Eighth. Mutilated as it was, the pages showed a -beautiful clear type and exquisite engravings. It was a good example of -the printing of Abbeville, famous for its engravers and binders since the -days of its first printing press in 1484. - -“Would you not like some books, then?” I ventured. - -“What sort of books? Not magazines.” He looked contemptuously at one that -I had in my hand. “Me, I like stories. See what I bought yesterday.” He -brought from a chest of drawers a gaudy paper volume entitled “La Morte -d’Amour.” - -Knowing that our library contained no such light literature, I continued, -“Would you perhaps like Dumas?” - -“Dumas? ‘The Three Musketeers’?” His wrinkled face lighted. “I know them. -Another book I liked the Germans loaned me when they were here. It was by -an Englishman—B-u-l-w-e-a-r—‘The Last Days of Pompeii’—a very interesting -book.” - -“Tell me,” he went on a little later, “some one has said that you have no -twilight in North America. Is it true?” - -It seeming in his mind to be a reflection upon our country, I tried my -best to dissipate this impression by citing the great size of the United -States, and its varying climatic conditions. But I could not truthfully -say that we had the lingering orange sunsets and afterglows of pink and -mauve and applegreen which I knew were in his mind, and with which I too -became familiar on the plain of Picardy. - -The last time I saw M. Touret was on a white and wintry morning when I -had risen even earlier than the Villagers or M. the chaplain, to attend -the Village mass. In a golden-brown corduroy which might have been -the twin of M. Augustin’s, I spied M. Touret on the path ahead of me, -homeward bound after the service. I ran to catch up. - -“Good morning, Monsieur, and how are you?” - -“_O, doucement, doucement_,” he answered. “And you?” - -“The books, did you like them?” I inquired, for his Christmas present had -consisted of three. - -“O, well enough; but one was not true. It was called ‘Contes de la Lune.’ -I did not read it. Another (this in reference to Tourguenieff) was by -a Russian; and you know well, in France we do not love Russia, now. A -Russian indeed! The third,—well Jules Verne is always interesting. _Ça -ira._” - -Somewhat discouraged, I recalled what Mme. Clara had told me once in -an effort to soften the old man’s brusqueness. “He is old; he is full -of crotchets, you understand.” But Madame herself appeared to me to be -quite as old, though I had the wit not to compliment her politeness -thus maladroitly. Perhaps it was because of this honesty, entirely -unaffected, that of all the households in my village, I enjoyed most -hers and M. Touret’s. There one found a freeborn fellowship, which, -like the mellow twilight, belongs to Picardy. It is a _timbre_ resonant -in the older generation; that generation which endured the invasion of -1870, as well as the invasion of 1914. It is a survival of many wars, of -many hardships, a spirit akin to that fortitude which has made our own -country,—a common language that we, who came from the ends of the earth, -could understand. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -UNE DISTRIBUTION DE DONS - - -At length, the survey of Canizy was completed: its crooked streets traced -on a map, its houses numbered, and the pre-war and the post-war status -of each of its families noted thereon. But long before these facts had -been collected, the articles found to be most necessary had been bought -for the homes. It only remained to wait their arrival. Even the number -of sheets and blankets in each household was listed, and against them, -the number to be given out. The honesty and unselfishness of most of the -villagers in setting down their needs, was a constant joy. There was -Mme. Regina, for instance, who had five pairs of stout linen sheets and -four soldiers’ blankets on two Boche beds. I proposed a new bed for the -baby, and covers to go with it. Mme. Regina acquiesced at first, but -later drew me aside: “I can get along,” she said, “I know you have not -enough to go around,—and when one is so poorly lodged anyway, it does not -matter. When I get my _baraque_, then I will come to you.” - -There was good sense in Mme. Regina’s decision. The housing rested not -with us, but with the Government, through the mayor of the commune. Long -delay ensued in Canizy, when ten families had applied, and only three -_baraques_ had been set up. Of these, two were for the domestics of M. -Lanne. Mme. Picard and the Mayor himself were among the waiting; nor -could one decide which was the more miserably off. Even Mme. Picard’s -vegetables were comfortably bedded compared with her children, in her -dark and windy barn, and as for M. le Maire, a water-spout built within -his hut carried the rain from his bed. But at last one day, loads of -_baraques_ began to arrive, and red-fezzed Moroccans, to erect them. -There were five shacks in all, and four, it transpired, were for Mme. -Picard and M. Thuillard. I could understand that Mme. Picard had need of -her two apartments, but the Mayor,—well, he wished to reopen his store. -And his wife, all smiles at their prospective installation, offered me -myself a guest room so that I could live in my village at last. But this -offer was tendered before the distribution of gifts. - -It was Dave, or strictly speaking, the Red Cross, which made possible -an early allotment of blankets and sheets in Canizy. Though they had -been overturned in the mud, even Mme. la Maire did not complain of their -condition. “It matters nothing; they can be washed,” she said. On the -day we had chosen, word was passed to each family that a distribution -would be made at Mme. Lefèvre’s at four that afternoon. There was no -need of a _garde champêtre_ such as they had in Esmery-Hallon to cry -the news. The children flew with it; the mothers halted at the corners -to talk about it; and at four o’clock, when the jitney drove in with -its wonderful cargo, a line like a bread-line had formed in front of -the door. Mme. Lefèvre herself came out to help us; the older boys lent -a hand, and within five minutes, piles of single blankets and double -blankets, and single sheets and double sheets, were ready to be given -out. Then a window was opened and the names were called. “Mme. Carlier: -6 blankets; 3 single sheets; 3 double sheets.” “Mme. Lecart: 3 double -sheets, 2 blankets.” So ran the list. One after another the mothers -stepped forward, received their quota and went away. There were order, -good nature, and no unkind comment. Even afterwards, there seemed to be -little dissatisfaction. The distribution had been made, as every one -knew, on the basis of actual need, and the result was accepted as just. -If Mme. Lefèvre had only one blanket, that was because she had plenty -of linen sheets, much better than the cotton ones we gave, a woollen -blanket, and a warm red eiderdown quilt. Only the mayor’s wife and that -very human lady, Mme. Charles Thuillard, of whom I have before spoken, -raised protesting voices,—but such was their bent. - -Our first distribution having gone so well, and we being still received -as friends, we proceeded to the second, which consisted of cast-iron -beds and stoves. The single beds we had been fortunate enough to buy -ourselves; but the double beds and the stoves came from M. le Sous-Préfet -and were signed for by the recipients as a part of their _indemnité de -guerre_. Heavy loads these articles made, and Dave and his truck were -requisitioned for the day. We first had to secure the double beds, which -were stored, together with other civilian supplies, at the Moroccan camp -at Nesle. To Nesle, then, we tore, coasting the long hills, and chugging -up the inclines as if the Germans themselves were in pursuit. Arrived -at the camp, we found that we had not made the proper entry, and must -reverse, disentangle ourselves from the railroad embankment, plough -through mud to the axles, and back up to the warehouse at the other end -of the yard. All this Dave did. Bedsteads, mattresses and bolsters were -then piled aboard. Dave and one of my comrades precariously balanced -on the front seat, and I high on the load, expecting a landslide every -minute, we steamed away for Canizy. A house to house visitation with a -truck down its narrow and uneven streets was also an adventure, and we -were thankful enough when the day ended with only minor injuries, and -every family that needed them supplied with beds. Stoves were simpler, -for the reason that they were smaller. Wardrobes, buffets, chairs and -tables would have followed, could we have secured them. But these, even -when I left, had not yet been crossed off the village lists. - -Failing to obtain furniture, we distributed clothing, for by this time -the winter was well upon us. Individual families had been taken care -of before as the need arose. In order not to pauperize, or hurt the -genuine self-respect of the people, I tried a plan known by them as -“an arrangement,” whereby I took vegetables, or rags, in exchange. This -system of barter was also one of coöperation with our travelling store, -which supplied the wants of families able—and glad—to buy. The coming of -the store made a red-letter day, like a market-day, in the village. Even -the soldiers gathered around, commenting humorously on the bargains, and -urging the ladies to buy. They asked on their own part for mufflers or -sabots or cigarettes. Once a small tradesman, transformed by his uniform -in appearance but not in nature, wondered audibly how long we thought -we could remain in business and lose in each purchase from a third to a -half of its value. Our storekeeper laughed. “_Toujours_, M. Soldat,” she -answered, and forthwith beguiled a hesitant grandmother into buying an -entire bar of laundry soap at four francs instead of twelve. - -But our “arrangements” did not lack humour or interest. There was Mme. -Laure, for example, who was purposely absent when we brought the new -clothing for her family, and undressed and bathed it and filled the -boiler in turn with what we had taken off; and Mme. Gense-Tabary who -conspired with her husband to get vegetables in Ham and resell to us at a -higher price in payment for her dozens of new garments, and Mme. Payell -who, hearing a rumour that We were about to outfit her babies, bought -extra buttons to have them ready to sew on. There was also conscientious -Mme. Regina, with her box of clean rags all ready for the new suit We -gave fifteen-year-old Raymond. - -The purpose of the rag industry was twofold: to clear the cluttered -interiors, and with the rags themselves to make rag rugs. After Mlle. -Suzanne’s washing, the clean pieces went to a class of three young -girls, who met once a week, divided the stock, and sewed and braided the -strands. To them went also the snippings of the hundreds of garments we -cut and let out through the district to be sewed. A pretty picture my -girls made of a Tuesday afternoon around the big table in Mme. Noulin’s -store; Elmire fair and delicate as a lily, Albertine black-haired and -black-eyed, and quick, graceful, thirteen-year-old Cécile. Fingers and -tongues were busy. Mme. Noulin herself bustled in and out, and finally -served us with the inevitable coffee. This ceremony concluded the lesson. -But the yards of braiding grew week by week,—though not without some -small heart-burning and rivalry. “Cécile,” Elmire complained, “takes all -the longer pieces and gives me only the scraps. Perhaps Mademoiselle -would speak to her.” But it was the Government which unintentionally -interfered most with my rags. I had bespoken the mayor’s hut for our -headquarters as soon as he was ready to move out. Only a few feet from -the best well, where we planned to install our new pump and our Village -_chaudière_, it was to be a centre of neighbourhood industry. But the -mayor still waits on opportunity and the rags still wait in sacks. - -As winter advanced, it became obvious, even at mass, that Canizy went -cold. The children’s noses and mittenless hands were red. True, there -was Mme. Gabrielle, who came in furs and smart black hats; and several -other ladies sufficiently warm if rather rusty and old-fashioned. But -one noted among the children an absolute lack of the capes which are -the characteristic dress of French school children. Throats wrapped in -mufflers, hands thrust into pockets or skirts,—this was their method -of keeping warm. The older boys especially looked pinched in trousers -which had become too short, and tightly buttoned, threadbare coats. One -day, when a biting wind and a powdery snow impressed their discomfort -upon me, I made a raid on our store-room, with the entire permission of -my colleague in charge. Woollen shirts, stockings, caps, overcoats and -suits, whatever article of warmth I could find, I gathered up. The roads -were too drifted for the truck, or for walking, but I had asked for the -horse and wagon. Carlos, our soldier, helped me pack my plunder, and -conveyed me on my way. But a difficult way it proved to be, and it was -not until nearly twilight that we drew up at Mme. Lefèvre’s door, too -late to distribute that night. I left the warm clothing in her care, -asking her at the same time to make me a list of those to whom she -thought it ought to go, and promising to return the following day. But -Mme. Lefèvre’s enthusiasm exceeded her instructions. When I came, she -met me with a triumphant smile. “I knew, Mademoiselle, that it would -please you were the clothes on the backs of the poor children. Voilà, I -have given the clothing according to the list.” A cramped and illiterate -list it was she handed me, devoid of capitals, but it accounted for -every article, even to a boy’s coat given to Lydie Cerf. “Lydie?” I -queried mentally, yet not for the world would I have questioned or -criticised good Mme. Lefèvre. Lydie herself I did question. “But, yes, -Mademoiselle,” she replied, “I am keeping the coat for Papa. He is with -the Boches. It will be ready for him when he returns.” - -When they return! It was a phrase on every lip. “If the children were -here, it would be different.” “No, I do not wish to touch my indemnity. -I and my wife, we are saving it for the boys when they come home.” -“Mademoiselle, I need another bed.” “But you have two.” “Yes, but there -is my mother, who may return any day.” So ran the undercurrent of longing -in every family, mutilated as were the apple trees girdled in the -orchards, uprooted, like them, and left for dead. - -For my next distribution, which was to be a more important one, I went -to Mme. Gabrielle. “Madame,” said I, “it is true, is it not, that the -parents of most of the children have enough money to buy capes?” “Yes,” -she admitted. “But it is not true that they will not do so?” “Yes; there -are so many things to buy when one has lost so much. We fear to spend -the money.” “Very well. Will you make me out a list for all the world?” -The list was made; a list so orderly that it could be used as a shopping -guide. Coats for the women and capes for the children were bought, -including a coat for Lydie Cerf. They were brought down by our own truck, -which had made a special trip to Amiens in the bitterest weather, and -deposited with Mme. Gabrielle. “Madame,” I said again as we brought the -heaped armfuls in, “will you not make this distribution yourself?” “But -it is very difficult,” she remonstrated, “and all the world will say -that I am partial.” “I will tell all the world that the distribution is -mine,” I urged. “You can see yourself that we are very busy,—and you know -the size for each child.” Reluctant though she was, Mme. Gabrielle’s -kind heart could not refuse. On a Sunday not long after, a strange yet -strangely familiar audience sat in the little church, the women in coats -all of one pattern, “but of different colours, the children in smart -blue hooded capes. No one looked self-conscious, or thanked us. The -distribution, like the snow, had fallen on the just and on the unjust; it -was a providence for which one thanked God. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -EN PERMISSION - - -At noon time, on dispensary days, I sometimes lunched with the doctors in -Mme. Lefèvre’s kitchen. It was a heterogeneous spot, with two beds (one -being stored for a niece), two cats, and a few neighbours always sitting -near the fire. Usually the neighbours were waiting for _la factrice_. A -tap at the window, and Madame ran to open it, and received a handful of -letters which the postmistress brought each day by bicycle from Nesle. -Were it cold, she herself, a capable, pleasant-faced woman, came in -to join the group for a moment, threw back her long cape, and warmed -her numb hands. Meantime spectacles were brought out and the envelopes -scanned. It was not alone of the return of the refugees that the village -lived in hope. They might come unannounced, but the soldiers, _en -permission_,—that was different. Any day Albert or Henri might write that -he was coming home! - -[Illustration: _C’est un coup de fourreau de sabre._ - -[A cut of a sword-scabbard.]] - -And when they came! It was in Mme. Lefèvre’s kitchen again that I had -the pleasure of seeing the greeting given to a soldier in faded blue. A -bronzed and bearded man he was, the father of a family. But the family -alas! the wife and the children, were _avec les Boches_. M. Huillard -seemed to have returned therefore, unheralded. As he opened the door, the -neighbours rose with exclamations; the men grasping his hands, the women -presenting one cheek and then the other for a kiss. Questions followed: -Where had he been stationed? At Verdun, and, more lately, at St. Quentin. -“At St. Quentin? Have you seen Narcisse, then?” Mme. Carpentier inquired -eagerly. “Yes, your husband was well. I have a letter.” And M. Huillard -fumbled in his pockets and brought out a thumbed envelope with the -cramped address: Mme. Regina Carpentier, Canizy, Somme. - -An account of the recent bombardment is curtailed by M. Huillard’s own -desire for information. This is his first visit to the village since his -leave-taking during the tragic mobilisation of 1914. He has known, of -course, of the German occupation; he has heard the terrible news of the -deportation of wife and children. He has seen other devastated villages. -But to-day, for the first time, he looks upon the ruins of his own home. -I saw him standing alone that afternoon before the sagging door, which -bore the staring military number 25, and beside it, chalked inscriptions -in German and in English jostling each other: _Gott mit uns._ _Hot ᛭ -buns._ Within, thistles grew about the hearth. M. Huillard uttered no -sound, and shed no tears, but his face, as he turned away, was set in a -white hatred, and his right hand rose to heaven in an unspoken vow. - -No soldier on his ten days’ leave remained idle. Mme. Cordier’s handsome -son, looking even more handsome in the uniform of an Alpine _chasseur_, -was no exception. In fact, when I first saw him, the uniform, including -his decoration, was covered by a mason’s white blouse. Up on a ladder, he -was white-washing the walls of the stable in which his family then lived. -A huge brick manger in a dark corner was startingly brought out by his -brush. It served as a kitchen table, and was laughingly referred to as -one of the conveniences of the _ménage_. In another home, I found one day -a soldier-brother knocking up a cupboard out of rough planks. Cheerful -was the sound of his vigorous hammer strokes, and cheerful the sight of -a young and merry face among the ruins. It mattered not whether he had a -bed to sleep in—one of the most difficult requests we had to refuse was -that of a bed to a soldier—the younger _poilu en permission_ was always -gay. If his mother worked, he helped her; and day after day through the -Christmas holidays one of these boys walked to the Château each morning -to help Mme. Topin chop our wood. I happened in upon her on the eve of -his departure. Her tiny cabin was full of an odour most appetising after -my long day’s walk. Over a glowing fire, she was turning waffles, “to put -in his knapsack,” she explained. But he had one the less for my having -called; and over it his mother sprinkled half of the last teacupful of -sugar she possessed. - -Mme. Topin had another son also serving with the colours, who came home -quite often to see his wife, because he was making a slow recovery from -gas-injured lungs. She, during his absence, taught in the village school, -while her old mother kept house and took care of three-year-old Guy. M. -Topin it was who showed me around his ruined yard one day, pointing out -the place of the five-room cottage, and telling me the colours of the -roses whose blackened stalks still remained against the walls. “This was -white and very fragrant; that yellow. I planted it on Guy’s birthday. -Here we had a bed of mignonette. Take care, Guy—pardon, Mademoiselle.” -And he stooped to wrench away from the child’s fingers a long cartridge -picked up in the débris. “A German bullet,” he explained, handing it to -me. “There are hundreds of them about.” - -As I have said, the soldier _en permission_ expected to work. Yet I know -of one who was assigned to more of a-task than he relished. Him, hapless -being, I first encountered down by the old Château at Canizy, hunting -rabbits for a stew. But as I remembered the dimensions of his mother’s -_baraque_, it seemed to me that self-interest might prompt him to leave -his hunting to assist me for a time. Besides his grandmother, his mother, -a brother and a sister, there was an aunt who had arrived to lodge with -the family,—a _réfugiée_ from near Péronne. Utterly destitute and unhappy -was the aunt. The fact that her husband and her daughter were still in -the slavery from which she had escaped, would be enough to sadden any -one, but she whispered to me that her sister did not make her welcome. -At the time, we were much in need of a domestic at our camp. “Would you -like to come and work for us, perhaps,” I suggested. “We have no lodging, -but I will find you a shelter in Hombleux from which you can walk over -with Madame our cook.” Rash promise, to which I added a complete outfit -of furniture and two francs a day. The offer was accepted. - -From pillar to post, I then went to Hombleux. A regiment _en repos_ had -been quartered there since I had made arrangements with the baker’s wife -for a room in her tidy loft. Regiments succeeded one another rapidly, -and during their sojourns there was literally no lodging to be had. I -was finally directed to a corner in the outbuilding of a former convent -school which was considered habitable. My soldier I pressed into service -to assist its quondam tenant, who had moved out because it was so cold, -in removing the vegetables, wood and furniture she still had stored -there. He looked on while a resourceful young girl pasted oiled paper on -the iron window frame; he went to the woods and chopped and hauled a tree -for fuel; he brought over at the same time a plank with which to mend the -door. This took a day, which I, meantime, spent in Ham. There I bought -a bed, mattress and bedding, a stove, a pipe, an elbow for the same, a -chair, a table, a metal wash basin and a pitcher, a saucepan, a little -set of dishes, a lamp, a brush and a broom. It is surprising how many -things are necessary for even a primitive existence. Two days more were -consumed in setting these few articles in place, and all the neighbours -helped. - -The snow had come, meantime, and the soldier returned to rabbit hunting. -As he remarked on pointing out the little roads beaten by them through -the weeds, “They look much better _en casserole_.” It remained for our -own soldier at the château to bring our domestic to her new home. One -frosty morning, Tambour and the cart awaited me after breakfast, and I -set forth. Old Tambour appeared none too steady on the trot to which I -urged him. “_Ça glisse_,” explained Carlos, and we relapsed into a walk. -In fact, all the way to Canizy we walked, the shrewd wind biting nose -and ears and coursing under the blankets on the high seat. Carlos got -out, winding the lines about the whipstock. The horse floundered through -drifts, and he, adjusting his cap to the veering gusts, trudged at his -head. At length, we debouched upon the direct road to the village. But, -barring our way was a machine-gun squad. Already the red signals had been -posted and the route was _défendu_. Even as we halted, came volleys like -staccato hail. On other occasions, with honking horn, we have run this -gauntlet, the sentries halting the fire for us to pass. But to-day, I -judged it safer to turn down into a hollow, and skirt the action. Thus -delayed, it was near noon when we turned into the gate of the Château at -Canizy. - -We were expected, however; coffee was hot upon the stove, and the soldier -_en permission_ served it, stirring the cups in rotation with the one -family spoon. Madame, our new domestic, was ready also, with quite a -store of bedding and clothing done up in a sack. Two kisses apiece, -a last admonition, a promise to come to see her on Sunday, and she -climbed up over the wheel. To her, I imagine, the journey to Hombleux -seemed, like a voyage to a foreign country. Nor was she welcomed, as I -afterwards learned, by her new neighbours in the commune. It seems, one -should have gone to the mayor first for permission to install her; and -certainly one should have paid more money to that inconvenienced lady, -the former tenant. As Madame said, “She talks most unkindly.” To add to -the newcomer’s hardships, the winter wind ripped the oiled linen from the -window, and her nephew, the soldier, never returned to mend the door. -“_Bien mal logée_,” having to walk a mile and a half through the snow at -dawn and after dark, it is not to be wondered at that she made a final -choice of her sister’s sharp tongue and warm fire, and left our employ. - -[Illustration: —_Si j’étais grand...._ - -[If I were grown up!]] - -Akin to the soldier _en permission_ is the soldier _en repos_. Of the -latter class was our Carlos, who was given us by M. le Sous-Préfet, -together with a horse and two carts. He was to report during his stay -to no one but Mlle. la Directrice, nor would the authorities take any -direct cognisance of him save in case of her complaint. A southerner was -Carlos, a dapper man from the Basque provinces. There he had a wife and -two children whom he had not seen for three years. But he expected a -_permission_ shortly, he said; and that may have reconciled him to the -uncongenial hewing of wood and drawing of water to which he was detailed. -Day long he drove, or chopped trees, or cleaned the stable, as advised. -His only diversion appeared to be our milk maid,—a harmless enough one, -I presume; for she told us proudly and often how she received a letter -from her soldier-husband every day. Nevertheless, there was visible -sadness when one morning Carlos announced that he had been transferred. -And was he then going home? No, his _permission_ had been taken away; he -was returning to the front. He and Tambour were to join the artillery. -Poor old Tambour, faithful, plodding; one knew not for which to feel more -compassion, the horse or the master, as one pictured them dragging into -position the grey seventy-fives! “Good-bye, then,” I said, “I am sorry.” -“O, what would you,” he replied. “So it goes. But you, you are leaving -also. Some one has told me, for America—_La bonne chance, Mademoiselle_.” - -Unlike Carlos only in that they came by regiments, were the shifting -troops taken at intervals from the trenches for a brief rest in our more -habitable villages. One saw them, a weary line of blue, marching down -the roads, flanked by stretcher bearers, and followed by a provision -train. Once settled, they stood about the corners of the streets or in -the gaping doorways; a disconsolate enough addition to the ruins. Or at -the camp kitchens, drawn up to one side, they grouped themselves around -huge cauldrons of soup. Sometimes a more ambitious company set to work -to clean up the village and built an outdoor bathing tank which was much -in use. On one occasion, a dashing troop of blue devils gave military -concerts each evening. An incongruous sight was the band, drawn sprucely -up in a desolate courtyard, and a strangely stirring sound, the music -floating through the empty streets, of _Ce que c’est qu’ un drapeau_. -Often soldiers and even officers came over to see us at the Château and -to ask for cigarettes or shoes. If one had time to listen, they talked -for hours on the war. They were never boastful, these soldiers; they -had a just estimate of the German strength of organisation; they had no -illusions as to their own personal fate. Each one expected to die at -his post. Patient, sturdy, intelligent, they gave one confidence that, -however heavy the dawn bombardments, our lines would hold. And if our -lines, then all the lines manned by them with such spiritual as well as -physical courage. The morale of the _poilu_, unflinching, will yet win -the war. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -A LA FERME DU CALVAIRE - - -Midway between Hombleux and Canizy, at the crossing of the highway, stood -on one side a Calvary, and on the other a demolished farm house. The -lane here emerged from a hollow, so that both objects rose distinctly -against the sky. About the Calvary, the poplars were shattered by -shell-fire; back of the farm sloped an orchard, whose every tree had -been lopped. Across the road and into the fields ran a zig-zag trench, -where could be found even yet blue coats and rusted helmets; the line of -defence evidently for the highway, against the German advance. A square -declivity, formerly a clay pit, perhaps an hectare in area, bordered road -and trench. Its banks were green with grass, and in the bottom land was -a little orchard. At one side, half-hidden, was a hut. - -A solitary farm is rare in these rural communities, where the houses as -a rule cluster in villages. I was undecided at first as to whether the -Farm of the Calvary belonged to Hombleux or Canizy. But in the yard were -two obvious reasons for calling and inquiring. Higher than the hut rose -a heaped hay stack; at its base the apples from the orchard had been -gathered in a mound of red and white. I ran down the path, too steep for -walking, and knocked at the door. It was opened by a gaunt, dark man -of perhaps forty-five. At a table sat his wife paring apples; and in a -corner, quite unabashed, his daughter, pretty Colombe, finished lacing -her bodice before she stepped forward to greet me. So small a room, in -any of our villages, I had never been in. A double bed took up all the -space except for a border of about two feet. The roof was so low that the -man seemed to have acquired a perpetual stoop. - -“_Entrez! entrez!_” was the hospitable entreaty; but not seeing how this -might be possible, I remained on the threshold. - -“I come from the Château,” I began. - -“But yes, you are one of the _Dames Américaines_, eh! We have often seen -you cross the fields. Colombe, here, goes to the sewing class with you.” -Colombe smiled a recognition. - -“I should have called before, perhaps; but I was not aware that a family -lived in so small a place, until I saw the smoke from the chimney to-day.” - -“Yes, it is small,” admitted the wife. - -“A Boche hut, eh!” agreed her husband. “Yonder, across the road is my -farm. Not one stone left; all destroyed. I have asked for a _baraque_.” - -I measured the interior with my eyes. “You would not have room for -another bed——” - -“If it folded, yes, and we would thank you. Colombe, she sleeps now on -the ground.” - -[Illustration: —_C’était là, notre maison._ - -[Our house used to be there!]] - -The bed being promised, I inquired as to fodder. Could I see if it were -suitable to feed our cows? Assuredly; and the brown sides of the stack -were rudely pulled apart that I might see and smell the sweet hay within. -How much would it weigh and how much would it cost? A bargain was finally -concluded for eight hundred francs. - -This was the first of many visits to the hut beside the road. Going or -coming, sharp eyes spied me, and friendly voices called me in. Once it -was for a bumper of sparkling cider. - -“I make it myself, from the apples. But I have to take them to Mme. -Marié’s in Hombleux because my press the Germans broke. Ah, the Germans!” -he continued. “It is only a month and a half since I returned, eh!” - -“Were you then taken to Germany?” - -“To Belgium; and I worked, always. And hungry, always hungry; one has -nothing, eh! to eat.” - -On another occasion I was offered apples; not the small, sour ones from -which cider was made, but luscious golden globes that adorned the narrow -beams of the hut like a frieze. - -“See,” said Monsieur. “I will put them in this sack, so that you can -carry them the more easily.” - -But I, thinking of the long miles yet ahead of me, ventured to suggest -that I call on my return. - -“Very well, only, look you, I shall not be here. But wait, I will hide -them. Behold, in the _chaudière_,” and suiting the action to the word he -lifted the cover of the cauldron and placed them within. “No one will -think to look for them there. Au revoir, until you return.” - -But a rain set in that afternoon; a slant mist which made Corot-like -effects of brown autumn copses and shut one in from the sometimes too -lonely sweep of the plain. At the same time, it beat persistently on my -face, and made heavier at every step my woollen uniform. I did not stop -therefore for my apples, and wondered for a few days what had been their -fate. But not for long. - -One morning at breakfast I was told that I had a caller. Now callers -about this time of a morning had become frequent, ever since Monsieur -le Maire of the commune told his villagers that they must apply to us -rather than to him for beds and stoves and cupboards. I visualised the -waiting crones of Hombleux whom in America we should have thrust into an -Old Ladies’ Home. Not so the French Government, which respected their -sentiment and built for each on her own plot her own _baraque_. Knowing -well that we had no cupboards, and no prospect of getting any, I rose -with a sigh. But my face brightened at the sight of M. Guilleux. - -Over his back hung a sack, nor was it empty. - -“You did not come for your apples,” he began. “I hope that you wish them, -however.” He unslung the sack, opened it, and disclosed the golden fruit. - -I thanked him. “But the sack, you wish it back?” - -“Yes, for look you; it is a little souvenir.” And at that he showed -me certain crosses and darts and letterings in German script which -indicated by number and description the prisoner, Guillaume Guilleux of -the commune of Hombleux and the farm _du Calvaire_. “I took this with me, -eh! I would not part with it.” - -“Not to me, Monsieur? To me also it would be a souvenir, to take to -America.” - -“O no, Mademoiselle, never,” and his hands clutched it involuntarily. -“The souvenir and the memory, they are mine. Both my grandchildren shall -remember also in the years to come.” - -But the sack was not the only souvenir contained in the little hut. I -spied one day three tiny teacups depending from nails upon the wall. They -were even smaller than coffee cups, and delicately flowered. - -“Oh, how pretty,” I exclaimed. “May I look?” - -Mme. Guilleux took them down with fumbling fingers and a suddenly altered -face. For the first time, I noticed the sharp indrawn wrinkles about -mouth and eyes which tell of suffering. - -“They belonged to Solange, Colombe’s sister,” and not able to continue, -she hid her face in her apron. “They were her tea-set,” she went on in -broken sentences. “Her father and I bought them for her on her thirteenth -birthday, and she always kept them. _Mon Dieu_, how lovely she was! -Curls, and long lashes, and skin like apple blossoms, and eyes blue like -those flowers! She was my oldest, and good as she was pretty. But on the -night when the Germans came, they tore her from my arms. Why do I live?” -she broke into sobs. “Solange, Solange!” - -She wiped her eyes at length, and regarded the little cups. “When we -returned, I searched the ruins. I was fortunate, for I found these. They -were all that I did find. Everything else had been destroyed. Nor did I -save anything, for look you, after the soldiers seized Solange, I ran -hither and thither distracted, and knew not what to save.” - -She rose, took the cups from my hands, and rehung them on the wall. - -How do they live, I wondered, as I passed out and over the fields? How -do these mothers keep their reason, who have seen their daughters taken -into a captivity upon which shuts down a silence deep as death? One -understands the comment of Mme. Charles Thuillard, who in spite of her -sharp tongue has a most human heart. She was showing me the picture of -her daughter one day; an enlargement such as all the world makes of its -dead. “Thank God,” she said, “she was happy; she died before the war.” - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -LES PETITS SOLDATS - - - Ou t’en vas-tu, soldat de France, - Tout equipé, prêt au combat, - Ou t’en vas-tu, petit soldat? - _C’est comme il plaît à la Patrie,_ - _Je n’ai qu’ à suivre les tambours._ - _Gloire au drapeau,_ - _Gloire au drapeau._ - _J’aimerais bien revoir la France,_ - _Mais bravement mourir est beau._ - -So, in chorus, sang the children of my village, day after day, as they -marched and circled about us up and down the streets. A catching tune; a -laughing eye; did they realise that only twelve miles away on the firing -line their soldiers were dying for the glory of the flag? No, it was not -possible for them, fugitives though they themselves had been, to live the -horrors of war. As Mme. Gabrielle said: “The children laugh; they do not -know that our world is destroyed, and it is well.” - -Yet it would be hard to find a more manly group of boys in any land than -those of Canizy. They were soldiers, even in their dress; blue caps, -and blue or khaki blouses and trousers which their mothers had cut and -made from the cast-off coats of passing troops, English or French as -the case might be. Stockings also were of a military colour; for as -Mme. Marie Gense explained: “One can find stockings in the trenches -sometimes,—dirty, of course, and ragged; but they can be washed and -raveled, and the yarn is excellent.” So it came about that little Robert -had one pair of stockings with blue tops and khaki feet, because, you -understand, there was not enough wool of one colour to complete them. -Above his wooden sabots, the straight splicing was plainly visible, if he -were ever _en repos_. But my memory of Robert is of tireless feet that -twinkled almost as merrily as his eyes. It was no hardship for him to -walk the eight miles back and forth to the Château of a morning for his -quart can of milk. Mud, rain, snow, it was all one to him. By the hand, -he often brought a younger cousin, Albert, aged six. Chubby-faced and -sturdy of leg was Albert, clad in a diminutive khaki suit, and a brown -visored cap which failed to blight his red cheeks. Robert, being brave -and unconscious, whistled the merry call he had been taught, “Bob White, -Bob White!” and smiled at all the world. But Albert, being shy, buried -his small nose between cap and muffler, hung his head, and if pressed too -far by unsought civilities, presented his back. - -It would be small wonder if all the children of Canizy had been shy. With -their elders they were virtual prisoners during the German occupation. -They had no incentive to gather in groups, no church and no school. -Rather, they were taught to slip in and out in silence lest they attract -sinister attention. One of our little soldiers to the end of his life -will carry a mark of German brutality in a hand maimed by a too well -aimed grenade. Even since the Retreat, their life has consisted of -skulking more or less among the ruins. Raiding aeroplanes, by night or -day, drop bombs in their vicinity; for Canizy lies near to Ham, the -munition centre of the St. Quentin front. They hear the bombardments; -and the rumours fly that the Boches are advancing. Will the lines hold? -Their mothers keep eyes and ears open to the eastward. One refuses to buy -a stove, because she thinks it is too risky an investment; her husband -is sure the Germans will return, and a stove, it cannot be carried away. -“What will you do then, if the Germans come?” I ask. “_Fly_,” is the -universal reply. “_We know the Boches; better to die than remain._” - -[Illustration: —_Et les momes Boches ils embrassent leur père?_ ... - -[And do the little Boche children hug their father?]] - -Even in the fields, a child cannot play. One day I was taken by a -bevy of laughing little girls to see an _obus_ which had fallen in -the graveyard near the entrance to the church. It had lain there some -months unexploded, hidden by grass and weeds. But the preparations for -All Saints’ Day, as punctiliously made last autumn as in times of -peace, revealed it. The girls danced about it like sprites, touching it -spitefully with their toes. “Take care,” I cried. “Come away.” Merry -laughter greeted my alarm. “There are many of them,” said dare-devil -Thérèse; “they do no harm.” Nevertheless, knowing that a farmer had been -killed while ploughing, not far away, by just such a shell, I sent word -to the military authorities who removed this particular _obus_, before -the next Sunday’s mass. The Government recognises the danger, and prints -large placards of warning, which are hung up in the schoolrooms. - -The schools themselves are depressing enough, for against no class of -buildings did the Germans vent more hatred. Throughout the devastated -area, they were completely destroyed. _Ecole des Filles_, or _Ecole des -Garçons_ may still be seen in white capitals adorning a gaping arch or a -jagged wall. But the schools, such as they are, are held in half-ruined -dwellings, or in _baraques_. One such dilapidated interior bore, beside -the warning against spent shells, the following “Fable for the day,” -written in the teacher’s slant hand upon the blackboard: “At our last -breath, we shall have nothing. Since we have neither father nor mother, -we are now orphans. Nevertheless, we must do right. We must do right -because it is right.” - -In Canizy, as I have said, there was no school. The walls even of the -former school building were razed to the ground. But the children were -supposed to attend the school of another commune, that of Offoy, a mile -and a half distant along the canal. This seemingly simple provision for -education was made impossible by the fact that regiments continuously -_en repos_ at Offoy used the sandy buttes formed by the Somme at this -point for _mitrailleuse_ practice. One saw them every afternoon at half -past two, bringing out their gruesome targets, in the shape of a human -head and shoulders, and sentineling the crossroads with notices and red -flags. Then woe to the urchin lingering perhaps in Offoy on some belated -errand. Like the rabbits he must stay under cover until the fusillades -should cease. Yet the children of the village were not wholly neglected. -It was their former teacher, now resident in Hombleux, who taught them -the stirring _Petit Soldat_. And from Offoy came M. l’Aumônier, of whom -you shall hear later, to teach them the catechism and to receive them -into the church. “They are very _gentils_, the children of Canizy,” -he assured me one day. “They are not like the children of the other -villages. They have brave parents; they are well brought up.” - -Well brought up, yes, in all the usages of docility and endurance. -Shifting of troops, obedience to military masters, slavery and pillage, -such are the facts which these children have learned for three years. But -grafted as the lesson has been upon a spirit gentle by nature, the result -is terrible in its sombreness. Robert Gense, uncannily helpful; Raymond -Carpentier, threadbare and bowed at fourteen,—a look like that of a -faithful, whipped dog in his eyes,—Elmire Carlier, whose lovely mouth is -carved in patience, the Tabarys, ragged and elfin—these are the children -of Picardy. But where is the spontaneity of childhood? Where may one find -it in the track of war? - -[Illustration: _Garde à vous!_ - -—_Compagnie!... halte!_ - -[Company ... halt!]] - -On our own playground, perhaps, sometimes. Yet the children had to -be encouraged to play. They might remember the words of the _rondes_ -which have lately become familiar to American children also through the -illustrations of Boutet de Monville, but they no longer curtseyed as -the beautiful gentlemen and the beautiful ladies should _sur le pont -d’Avignon_. They no longer had books to read. A prayer book, a hymnal, -sometimes the family records; these were all the literature saved in -their mothers’ sacks of flight. But the play teacher draws our waifs of -the war as if with a magic flute; even M. Lanne’s cows come trooping -with the children, because the boy who herds them cannot come without. -The babies come, with older sister nurses; and on the outskirts may be -seen bent grandfather or grandmother, forgetting sorrow for the moment, -in watching the romping groups. And even after the store automobile, -stripped of its merchandise, honks persistently its desire to be off, -the joy of that brief hour is perpetuated in the books that the teacher -leaves behind. Who so proud then as the boy or girl singled out to be the -owner of a book for a whole week? _Contes des Fées_, _petites histoires_, -the _rondes_ themselves; they are treasures comparable to fairy gold. -Yet reading never seems to interfere with duty; Raymond, or Désiré, or -Adrien, you are likely to meet them as usual _en route_ to Voyennes for -apples, or returning from Ham with loaves of bread hanging, like life -preservers, about their necks; they pasture the few cows; they feed the -rabbits; they bring wood and dig coal,—they are the men of Canizy. - -Such grow to be the soldiers of whom France is proud; those older -children, the _poilus_, whom all the world has come to know. Long ago -Julius Cæsar knew them also, and Hirtius Pansa wrote of them: “They make -war with honour, without deceit and without artifice.” Brought up to -adore _la Patrie_, singing of death, as of glory, the little soldier of -France marches to-day as did the child in the Children’s Crusade. Across -three thousand miles I hear his refrain: - - _Point de chagrin,_ - _Point de chagrin,_ - _Il a sa gourde, il a sa pipe,_ - _C’est un gaillard toujours en train._ - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -M. L’AUMÔNIER - - -In Canizy, one found always something new. It might be an _obus_, or -a soldier _en permission_, or a family _réfugiée_, or a _baraque_. I -learned to expect the unexpected. Having carefully negotiated with M. -Lanne for certain timbers and chicken wiring which formed the basis for -a roof of which I had need, I was prepared to see that they had vanished -overnight, and to express neither surprise nor indignation when I was -told that they were transformed into the foundation for Mme. Picard’s -_baraques_. Having left glass, diamond cutter, putty, brads, and a list -of those who needed the panes, I was not discouraged when week after week -went by without M. Augustin’s cutting them. The fact that M. Noulin had -brought the materials over in his cart, and held them on his premises, -was doubtless reason enough why M. Augustin stayed his hand. At all -events, it seemed wiser to leave the solution of this problem to the -village; and the last I knew, it hinged on the return of a soldier _en -permission_, a glazier by trade. He, all the world assured me, would -actually out the glass! - -The Noulins themselves were among my earliest surprises. How they came -I know not, but one day I found the trio, father, mother and daughter, -tidying up the premises they had rented from M. Huillard. The outermost -room, from the walls of which still depended half-charred pictures, gaped -to the sky. But this was used as a store-room for neatly stacked wood -and fodder; within, the main room served as both kitchen and _épicerie_; -off it opened two bedrooms, and in the rear was a yard. The rooms were -completely furnished and the yard stocked with hens and about thirty -rabbits. In the stable stood a pony and a high-wheeled cart. All these -goods had M. Noulin bought and brought back from Compiègne, whither he -had fled at the outbreak of the war. - -It was in the _épicerie_, which we provisioned, that I came to look for -most of the news of Canizy. Here, about the table, might sit drinking the -Moroccans who were repairing the canal. Here Mme. Moulin thrust into my -hand an account of our own Unit in her fashion journal of the month; an -account glowing with undeserved praise of America and concluding with the -words: “Heureux pays, où sur les mairies des villages on pourrait écrire: -‘Aide-toi, l’Amérique t’aidera.’ Plus heureuses Américaines, qui peuvent -et qui savent donner!” - -Here she showed me a postal marked _Deutschland_, and bearing on its back -the picture of a jovial-looking man in civilian dress. “It is my son,” -explained Mme. Noulin. “He is a _prisonnier militaire_, and sends me this -to show me how well he is. He writes, too, that he has plenty to eat, of -sugar, of chocolate, and is always warm,—there is so much of coal! Think -you it is true?” - -On the table was lying a package, done up with many directions, all -pointing to Germany. “What is this?” I asked. “That is for him; but the -_factrice_ could not take it to-day; such are her orders. No packages -will be transported by Germany this week, or next, or who knows for how -long? It is on account of a troop movement, she says.” - -“But why then do you send, if he has no need?” - -“There, what did I tell you?” broke in her husband. “Oh, these women; -they have no minds! It is the enemy who sends the letters, that we may -feel more bitterly the cold, the hunger, the misery, that we endure!” - -It was at Mme. Noulin’s, in fine, that I first met M. l’Aumônier. - -A snowy, windy morning it was, and the glare and the smart in my eyes -blinded me so that I did not at first note anything unusual about the -blue-clad soldier sitting by the fire. Declining Madame’s invitation -to share the open bottle of wine on the table, I was proceeding with my -errand when she’ interrupted, “Mademoiselle, I want you to know that this -is M. l’Aumônier from Offoy, who takes an interest, like you, in Canizy.” - -The chaplain arose at the informal introduction. A deprecatory smile -became well his sensitive yet Roman features, and a quick flush -heightened his colour. “But no,” he said, his enunciation betraying him a -gentleman in spite of the plain uniform, “it is I who have been hearing -of your goodness and that of your co-benefactresses, Mademoiselle.” - -“Mademoiselle,” protested Mme. Noulin, “you should know that Monsieur -walks from Offoy every morning before eight o’clock to conduct a class in -the catechism in the church.” - -“That matters nothing; it is my pleasure, I would say, duty. But you—you -who have come from America to help my poor France, you who walk so much -farther. I, I have legs trained for walking by long marches, by a -soldier’s life——” - -But I knew something of the duties of a military chaplain. Had I not seen -the bare, dark infirmary where he comforted his invalided companions? Had -I not visited the _baraque_ called the Soldiers’ Library which was more -or less in his charge; that cheerless hut with the books locked out of -sight in one corner, and the directions for rifle practice confronting -one on the wall? Could not one divine the battle charges when M. -l’Aumônier went forward in the ranks with his comrades, or stopped only -to give them the sacrament as they fell? Did I not know the calls made -upon him by the civilians also, now that he was _en repos_? A soldier’s -life, indeed, has inured the military chaplains of the French army to -hardships by contrast greater perhaps than any endured by the other -soldiers of France. - -[Illustration: _Sans l’officier, les soldats nous auraient peut-être rien -fait?_ - -[If it hadn’t been for the officer, I don’t think the soldiers would have -done anything to us.]] - -I strove to stop him, to express to him something of my deep appreciation -of this added burden he had taken on his shoulders in the spiritual care -of the children of Canizy. - -But he waved away all implied sacrifice. “It is a pleasure,” he repeated, -“and the children are so good.” - -Thereafter, M. l’Aumônier became my most disinterested ally in our -village. Did a mass seem desirable, the time was set late enough for me -to reach it from the Château. What mattered it that thereby Monsieur did -not breakfast till noon? When Mme. Gabrielle was still undecided over -her distribution, he consented to lend his presence to the function, and -thereby insured its success. He even undertook the responsibility of such -a mundane matter as the cutting of the glass. Day after day, I met him -in one family circle or another, making pastoral calls. Very different -were those happy weeks to the villagers from the months preceding, when -spiritual consolation came only with death. He seemed to find entrance -into the hearts of the people, and they responded to his care as flowers -to the sun. - -Wherever M. l’Aumônier went, went also a clean, blond soldier boy of -twenty, who was studying to be a priest like his friend. He spoke -English, which he had learned as a shipping clerk in an exporting house -at Havre. “Our Colonel,” he explained, “is very much interested in the -civilians, particularly in the children. He even sent one of his captains -to Paris to buy warm clothing for every one of them in Offoy. He is a -very rich man and very kind. He has detailed me to help M. l’Aumônier all -that I can.” - -We were walking along the canal as we spoke, and the wind blew straight -from the north. M. l’Aumônier said something in a low voice, and the boy -whipped off his scarf. “Yes, _please_, you are cold; you must take it,” -and perforce the scarf was wound about my neck. - -“How long are you to be here?” I asked, dreading to see this regiment -pass back to the front. - -“Me, I do not know. I have been wounded, you know; twice with the -bayonet, and ten days ago I was gassed. The lungs pain me yet,—I cannot -do much work.” - -“You,” broke in his superior, “you, Mademoiselle, will go before we -do—for you have told me that you leave soon for America. At least, you -will have seen something, and can tell them there of the misery which -France suffers.” - -“But one sees so little,—the trenches, the battles, the hardships of the -soldiers, I know nothing of these.” - -“The trenches? There is little to see; is it not so, comrade? But this,” -he swept his arm to indicate the circle of destruction all about us, -“this you know. Tell them of the agony and of the fortitude of Picardy.” - -We had come to the parting of our ways. Turning west, I was confronted -by a winter sunset; bare branches, crimson streamers, cold lakes of -turquoise; and bleak against this background, the ruins of Canizy. M. -l’Aumônier was right; of this one who has seen it cannot help to speak; -of the terrible devastation, of the silent courage of those who live in -it and fight, unheralded, their fight for France. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -HEUREUX NOËL - - -Christmas weather, sunlight, moonlight and snow; our grove a white -stencil; our _baraques_ with their red shutters by day and their lighted -windows by night, like painted Christmas cards; our defaced and ruined -villages new-clothed with beauty,—such was our Christmas week. But -the snow, so beautiful to the eye, accentuated the bitter cold of our -ill-lodged and under-nourished neighbours, and the moon pointed out to -hostile aeroplanes desired points of attack. It was on account of the -dangerous moonlight that the Bishop of Amiens forbade midnight masses in -the churches. We, and our villagers, were the more disappointed because -even during the German occupation these masses had been sung. We heard -of loaded Christmas trees, and of parties where cakes and chocolate -were served by German officers. “Not for all the world, you understand,” -Colombe, our informant, explained, “just for themselves.” Yet all the -world had had some share in the German Christmas, and we felt eager to -make up a little for the added hardships caused since that time by German -cruelty, for all the ruined homesteads which are but the outward sign of -families scattered, missing and dead. - -Yet at first, so prevalent was the feeling of sadness, we thought it -might not be desirable to have a fête. Did the villagers want one? Had -the Christmas tree too many German associations? We made inquiry of M. -le Sous-Préfet, and of the Commandant of the Third Army. From the latter -came the following reply: - - 27.11.17. Guiscard - - Dear Miss ——, - - I am glad to tell you that you got a stupid gossiping about the - Christmas tree. - - There is nothing at all in this country against the charming - practice to delight the children with a spruce of which some - toys are hanging all round among as many candles as possible. - - Therefore you are free to be nice for the poor people once more - and God bless you for your splendid charity. - - With my kindest regards for you, for your chief, and your - sisters, - - Yours respectfully, - - —— - -So it came about that in each of the villages there was a spruce, with -toys and candles and goodies, and carols and Christmas cheer. In Canizy, -thanks to good fortune and to M. l’Aumônier, the fête was especially -pretty. I had not yet met the chaplain or planned my Christmas, when, on -a late December afternoon, I happened to pass the little chapel, on my -way to Visit a group of families lodged within the grounds of the old -Château. Several times before I had been inside, once for a mass on All -Saints’ Day, and more than once to look at the faded painting behind the -altar, and at the quaintly quilted banners of the saints along the wall. -These, strange to say, had been left in place by the German invaders; -save for a soiled altar cloth and two or three broken windows, the -church, indeed, appeared as if it might still be in constant use. - -[Illustration: —_Il n’est pas venu?... Il est mobilisé!_ - -— ... _Et il a pas eu de permission._ - -[He has not come? He has been mobilised.... - -And he has not had any leave.]] - -To-day, in spite of the early gathering dusk, and the long walk home, an -impulse beckoned me in,—a very definite impulse, however, for I had in -mind to decipher a moulded coat of arms upon the walls, and to search the -sacristy. In other village churches, alas! dismantled, were to be found -carved chests of drawers, black letter Bibles, brasses, and glorious -books of chants. Perhaps my little chapel might contain treasures also. -Past Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Anthony of Padua, past the Sacred Heart, -and that humble saint of gardens, St. Fiacre, to whom had nevertheless -been given the place of honour on the Virgin’s right, and up through the -chancel I went. The door of the sacristy creaked at my sacrilege. - -The alcove on which it opened was hung with cobwebs. The floor was -littered; drawers gaping awry disclosed a medley of candle ends, tinsel -flowers, vases and books. But on shelves across the end, my eye caught -glowing colours of vestments, green and gold and purple, lying in the -same folds, apparently, in which M. le Curé had left them when he went -forth into captivity three years ago. In a corner cabinet were sundry -images, broken for the most part, and among them that of a wax doll, -broken-armed and blackened with age, but encased in a bell of glass. -In an opposite corner, behind a scaffolding, I found another treasure; -a tiny thatched hut upon a standard, evidently designed to be borne in -processions. Ivy, turned crisp and brown, entwined its four pillars, and -chestnut leaves, silvered with dust, made an appliqué upon the thatch. -The God of Gardens, the Festival of the First Fruits, perhaps,—had I not -come here upon a Roman survival in old Picardy? But, suddenly, I saw with -other eyes; here were the cross and the Christ-child; I had stumbled on -the Christmas _crèche_. - -Time pressed; I noted again the faded blazons which flanked the saints on -either wall—a closed crown, a shield embossed with seven _fleurs-de-lis_, -and upheld by two leopards—shut the outer door, and took my way to the -Château. One can see that the Château of Canizy is ancient, by its two -stone turrets and its Gothic arch. At least, it is so ancient that no one -in the village remembers the family whose royal escutcheon adorns its -chapel walls. It is but lately a ruin, however, at the wanton hands of -the Germans. In a stable in the farmyard, I found the family I had come -to visit, formerly domestics of the estate. - -The old, bent grandmother, vacant-eyed and silent, sat in a corner -nearest the fire. The mother, whom I never saw without her black cap, -shook hands and dusted off a chair. The daughter, lovely as a beam of -sunshine in that dark interior, offered me wine. - -“But no,” I protested, “it is late,” and having paid for the knitting of -a pair of stockings, which was my errand, I continued, “Tell me, please. -I have just come from the sacristy. There is a little house there.” - -“The _crèche_!” - -“There is also a doll.” - -“Yes, the little Jesus!” - -“Have you then all you need for the _crèche_, and would you like a mass -for Noël?” - -At that even the grandmother’s eyes lighted. - -“A mass! We have not had one for three years!” - -Who, then, would clean the church, who trim the _crèche_, who tell me -what to get for it? The answers came as rapidly as the questions. Elmire -had always had charge of the _crèche_; she would return with me at once -to see what was lacking. - -Together we made our way back and inventoried (1) the _crèche_ itself; -(2) a white lace-bordered square, (3) the little Jesus, and (4) some -tinsel, or angel’s hair. - -“There is lacking,” Elmire thought quickly, “a Saint Joseph, a Blessed -Virgin, six tapers, cotton wool, and perhaps a star.” - -Twice on my homeward journey I was stopped by Elmire’s younger brother, -running after me with breathless messages: “Elmire says, would you please -get a shepherd,” and, “Elmire asks for three little sheep.” - -Where one was to get these was as much a mystery as the priest for the -mass. But I promised that all should be done. - -The figures for the _crèche_ were actually found in Amiens. To them was -added a new little Jesus in a cradle; and the whole was brought by hand -to Elmire. The delight of the entire family in unwrapping the various -bundles was equalled only by my own in watching them. Afterwards, in the -stable, the _crèche_ was trimmed. Artificial flowers, blue and pink and -tinsel, bloomed under Elmire’s deft fingers; the pillars were fluted with -coloured paper, the roof plaited with holly leaves. A lamp was necessary -in the dark place, and its light fell on the eager faces of the family, -grouped about that fairy hut. “In a stable,” I thought as I looked at -them, “in a stable, the Christ is born again.” - -[Illustration: —_Si on voit pas l’Noël, on verra peut-être un Zeppelin._ - -[Well, if we don’t see Santa Claus, we may see a Zeppelin, anyhow!]] - -But it was M. l’Aumônier who voiced my thought at mass on Christmas Day. -He had made a children’s service of this, centred about the _crèche_. -After the _cantiques_, led by the soldier-boy, after the triumphal -_Adeste, Fideles_, the children knelt in a circle about the cradle of the -Christ. - -“My children,” began the chaplain, “this year, you yourselves live in -huts, in barns, and in stables; so in a stable lives the little Jesus, as -you see. You know what it is to be cold, beneath the snow upon the roof; -so does the little Jesus. You have been hungry; so is he. - -“My children, it behooves you, therefore, to make for the little Jesus -a cradle in your hearts; cleanse them, each of you, and ask the little -Jesus in. - -“What next should you do, my children? Should you not pray first of all -for yourselves, that you may be kept from sin? Next, forget not to pray -for the soldiers of _la Patrie_, who only a few miles away, guard you -from your enemies. Next, think on your fathers, your older brothers and -sisters, who are with the Germans in captivity. Beseech mercy for them, -my children, that the good God may return them to your homes. Next, be -especially thoughtful of your mothers and obedient to them, who stand to -you in the place of both your parents. And last, but also of importance, -my children, remember in your prayers your benefactresses, these ladies -who have given you this year the Christmas _crèche_.” - -[Illustration: —_Et si i gèle cette nuit?_ ... - -—_Ben mon vieux on pourra s’asseoir._ - -[And if it freezes to-night? - -Why, old chap, we can sit down.]] - -M. l’Aumônier said more, but I could not hear it. I was aware that he -himself set the children an example by praying for us, heretics though -we were. It was only when we came out into the open sunlight, and walked -up the street to Mme. Lefèvre’s to strip the tree, that laughter became -possible, and that one could see the accustomed smile in his eyes. Yet -even at the fête, we could not escape from thanks. The presents, selected -to be sure with care, but so inadequate compared with the needs, were -hardly distributed when a hush fell on the packed room. A boy stepped -forward, and began to read from a piece of paper in his hand. A girl -followed. Their elders listened with the greatest satisfaction, nodding -their heads and smiling at our amazement. And this is what they said,—a -measure not of what we did, but of the spirit of stricken Canizy: - - Le cœur des dames Américaines s’est emu, à la pensée des - misères qu’avait entraînées derrière soi, la terrible guerre, - et vous êtes venues parmi nous les mains pleines de bienfaits - et vos cœurs débordant de dévouement. - - Il nous est bien doux de vous dire merci, en cette circonstance - créée encore par votre charité. Notre merci passera, permettez - nous Mesdames et chères Bienfaitrices, par la crèche du petit - enfant Jésus! - - Puisse-t-il vous rendre en consolation, ce que vous lui donnez - en bienfaits! Au début de l’année nouvelle, nos vœux sont pour - vous et pour ceux qui vous sont chers! Que Dieu comble de - gloire, et de prospérité votre noble Amérique! Qu’il féconde sa - générosité inlassable, que Dieu vous accorde une bonne santé, - nos chères Bienfaitrices, et qu’il vous dise toute l’affection - de cette commune, profondément reconnaissante. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -FIDELISSIMA, PICARDIE - - -Since the commencement of this short volume, the German flood has rolled -again across the Somme. Péronne, Nesle, Ham, Noyon, those towns mentioned -so often and so gloriously in the annals of France, have fallen once more -into the hands of the enemy. With them go the villages where my Unit -laboured. Canizy, it is no more. The green-bladed wheatfields have become -fields of unspeakable carnage; the poor ruins again smoke to heaven, and -down the shattered highways course endlessly the grey columns of that -Emperor whose empire is pillage and death. - -What, then, remains to us of our labours? At least a memory in the lives -of the peasants, and a present help in this their time of stress. Our -villagers were rescued, and taken by special trains to safety. The Unit -accomplished this work of succour. Their trucks were driven under shell -fire through the villages to collect the inhabitants; sometimes they -were the last over the bridges; they left our headquarters only when the -Uhlans were within charging distance; they have fed and clothed thousands -of refugees and soldiers. Mentioned with them in the newspaper accounts -of their service is our Red Cross truck driver, Dave. The fate that has -overtaken our peasants, what is it but a repetition of the immemorial -blows that have welded and tempered their ancestral spirit? As one of -their historians has limned them: “Les Picards sont francs et unis.... -Ils vivent de peu.... Il arrive rarement que l’activité et le désir de -s’avancer les déterminent à sortir de leur pays.... Ils sont sincères, -fidèles, libres, brusques, attachés à leurs opinions, fermes dans leurs -résolutions.”[6] It was to this spirit that an ancient king of France -paid honour, when he granted his kinsman, who held this province, a coat -of arms bearing the royal lilies, and the motto: _Fidelissima, Picardie_. - -A thousand such Picards we have known, women for the most part; enduring -a bitter winter, a daily hazard, that they might live on their own land -and till their own fields once more. There was Mme. Pottier, sitting in -her wrecked bakery, where the empty bread baskets were arranged like -plaques against the walls. Her husband and her three daughters were -prisoners. Her youngest son had died a soldier. She showed me with -trembling hands the letter she had received from his Colonel, commending -his clean life and his brave death. Her only remaining child was a -_religieuse_,—a Red Cross nurse. I found Mme. Pottier one day reading the -“Lives of the Saints.” “I like to read,” she said, “all books that are -good. I love well the good God.” But she worked also, and knitted many a -pair of stockings for us. First, however, the wool must be weighed. “It -is just,” she reiterated after each protest on my part. “My conscience -will be easy so.” And up a ladder she mounted to the loft, where stood -scales designed to weigh sacks of flour. No weights being small enough, -she took a few coppers from her pocket. “Voilà!” she said, throwing -them into the balance. “Remember, the skeins weigh six sous; when the -stockings are done, you shall see, they will be the same.” - -There was Mme. Gouge, beautiful and tragic, who came and cooked for us, -in order to send her son to school in Amiens; and even more pathetic, her -brother-in-law, formerly the owner of the prettiest house in the village, -who often accompanied her and served our meals. He was the village -barber as well, and on a Saturday was busy all day in his shed, heating -water, shaving M. le Maire and other of his neighbours, and presenting -each, on the completion of the task, with a view of shaven cheeks, or -clipped hair, in the broken bit of mirror which hung beside the door. -Orderliness seemed to be M. Gouge’s ruling passion; the arbours in the -two corners of his garden, the round flower-bed in the centre, the grassy -square, the gravel walks,—all were as well kept as if the shattered house -were still tenanted, and Madame, his wife, were looking out as she used -to do upon the garden she loved. - -Among the Picard soldiers, there was Caporal Levet, the boy-friend of M. -l’Aumônier, who made so light of his wounds. “It is nothing,” he repeated -again and again after sharp fits of coughing brought on by exposure to -the biting wind as he accompanied us during our week of fêtes. “This is -nothing; I am resting now. Soon I shall go back. My Colonel, he told me -only to-day that I must go down to the Midi to train Moroccans. That is -to the bayonet. Me, I do not like the bayonet,—the charges. One goes with -the blacks, you know. I have been wounded twice. But,” a shrug of the -shoulders, “my Colonel says that I am the youngest,—and I should go.” -Some one asked at one of the parties that he lead the Marseillaise. He -protested for the first time. “We French,” he said, “we are droll; we -do not like to sing always of dying for the glory of _la Patrie_.” But -they die, nevertheless; and one is left only to wonder when his time will -come, on what dark night, in the lull of the bombardment, when the blacks -leap out of the trenches and lead the desperate charge. - -In Hombleux, in the church, beside the altar, hangs the Village roll of -honour, bearing the names of six sons of Picardy fallen in its defence. - - Roullard Pottier - Albert Gourbière - Robert Gautier - Pierre Commont - August Deslatte - Amidé Bens - -[Illustration: _Oui, mais, il est fort papa, plus fort que dix boches._ - -[O yes, papa is strong, stronger than ten Boches.]] - -Unknown heroes these, peasant names, roughly printed. Yet Hombleux, in -the midst of its desolation, of its sorrow for those other sons and -daughters forced into ignoble slavery, remembers its soldier dead. It -remembers in prayer that France for which all have suffered. Near the -illuminated scroll, upon its black background, stands a statue of Joan of -Arc, and beneath it is placed this prayer: - - O bienheureuse Jeanne d’Arc! que notre France a besoin, à - l’heure présente, d’âmes vaillantes, animées de cette espérance - que rien ne déconcerte, ni les difficultés, ni les insuccés, ni - les triomphes passagers et apparents de ses ennemis; des âmes - qui, comme vous, mettent toute leur confiance en Dieu seul; des - âmes enfin que les efforts généreux n’effraient pas, et qui, - ainsi que vous soldats, se rallient à votre étendard portant - ces mots gravés: “Jésus! Maria! Vive labeur!” O Jeanne! ranimez - tous les courages, faites germer de nobles héroïsmes et sauvez - encore une fois la France qui vous appelle à son secours! - -_Fidelissima, Picardie!_ It was in Amiens, in the Library there, that -I first saw the emblazoned coat of arms of the province, and those of -her famous cities, Péronne, Nesle, St. Quentin, Amiens, Noyon, Ham with -its castle, and Corbie, with its crows. I had come by slow train from -Paris, and waited perforce for the still slower train which was to drop -me that night at Hombleux, the nearest railroad station to our Château. -Snow was upon the ground; the sunlight sharp and cold. It cleft the airy -spire of the Cathedral out of the blue sky like a diamond-powdered sword. -It frosted the delicate azure of the rose window, and high up among the -clustered pillars, threw prismic whorls that floated like flowers upon -a rippled stream of light. In the Library, it fell upon tooled leather -bindings, upon the gorgeous blazons, upon pages illuminated, like the -white walls of the Cathedral, with ethereal fruits and flowers. But -the day was all too brief. As my train puffed and rumbled away from -the city, dusk enveloped the plain till the evening star—or was it an -_avion_?—burned forth. Passengers entered or descended, the last being -a batch of Tommies bound for the Cambrai front. They were a noisy, -good-natured lot, who slammed their rifles into the racks, trod upon one -another’s toes, and wished heartily that “this bloomin’ war was done.” -At Chaulnes they got out; an American engineer followed, and I was left -alone. In total darkness the train proceeded, the engine as we swung -around the curves looking like a dragon, belching fire. Presently, out of -the vast level, rose the moon; and with it came those detonations which -we, even in our sheltered camp, had learned to associate with its beauty. -The Boches were bombing Ham. - -Like my day in Amiens is my remembrance of Picardy; the dun plain, the -windy sky, the play of light and shadow over both. The blazons given her -by history glow anew in the heroisms of to-day. They form a glorious -volume, illuminated with flowers as gorgeous as those traced by the monks -of Corbie upon the pages of their Books of Chants, bound, as were they, -with massive iron bands,—the iron bands of war. - - - - -APPENDIX - -BEFORE THE WAR - -[Illustration: _CANIZY_ - -_Survey made November, 1917._ - -Plan of the Village.] - - -1914 - - 1. MME. MARIE GENSE—Had a few rabbits; good house. - - 2. M. NOULIN—Was a storekeeper; had rabbits and hens. - - 3. M. POITEAUX (soldat).[7] - - 4. M. LEON TABARY (living near Amiens). - - 5. M. HUILLARD (soldat). - - 6. M. COTTRET (prisonnier civil). - - 7. MME. AUGÉ—Had hens and rabbits; small garden. - - 8. M. HUILLARD (see 5.) - - 9. M. GAMBARD (at Compiègne). - - 10. M. THUILLARD, G. (at Bacquencourt). - - 11. MME. CORDIER—Had 10 cows, 2 bulls, 1 ox, 87 pigs, 3 horses, - 150 chickens, 150 rabbits, market garden, orchard. - - 12. MME. CARPENTIER, J.—Had 3 cows, 2 horses, 30 hens, 50 - rabbits, market garden. - - 13. MME. PICARD—Had 2 cows, 1 horse, hens, rabbits, market - garden. - - 14. M. THUILLARD, O.—Had 7 cows, 4 horses, 50 hens, 30 rabbits, - 10 hectares of land for garden. - - 15. MME. BROHON (at Voyennes). - - 16. MME. MOROY, R. (at Esmery-Hallon). - - 17. MME. CARPENTIER, R.—Had 2 horses, 21 rabbits, 30 hens, - garden. - - 18. MME. LEFÈVRE—Had 2 cows, 2 horses, 50 rabbits, 30 hens, - market garden. - - 19. M. MOROY—Had 1 cow, 1 horse, 1 pig, 30 rabbits, 100 hens. - - 20. M. CHARLET (at Amiens). - - 21. MME. MOROY (dead). - - 22. MME. TABARY, G.—Had only a few rabbits; husband hostler at - 23. - - 23. MME. THUILLARD, G.—Had 2 cows, 3 horses, hens, rabbits, - market garden. - - 24. M. TOURET (prisonnier civil). - - 25. M. LANNE (at Ham). - - 26. M. HENET (prisonnier civil). - - 27. MME. BUTIN—Had a few hens and rabbits; small garden. - - 28. M. TOURET (prisonnier civil). - - 29. MME. ROQUET (dead). - - 30. MME. CORREON—Had rabbits and hens; small garden. - - 31. MME. DESMARCHEZ (at Esmery-Hallon). - - 32. MME. DELORME (at Amiens). - - 33. M. HUYART (at Voyennes). - - 34. M. REUET (in Paris). - - 35. M. REUET (in Paris). - - 36. MME. VILLETTE (at Voyennes). - - 37. MME. CERF (prisonnière civile). - - 38. MME. MOROY (dead). - - 39. M. THUILLARD, C.—Had 2 cows, 2 horses, 25 chickens, 200 - rabbits, large market garden. - - 40. MME. MOROY (dead). - - 41. MME. MOROY (dead). - - 42. MME. MOROY (dead). - - 43. MME. CARPENTIER, R. (see 17). - - 44. MME. BUTIN (see 27). - - 45. M. THUILLIER, A.—Had 10 rabbits, 12 hens; was a cobbler. - - 46. MME. MOROY, CLAIRE—Had 1 horse, 1 cow, rabbits, hens. - - 47. MME. DELORME, O.—Had 100 rabbits, 40 hens, small garden. - -In 1914 Canizy had 445 inhabitants. - - -November, 1917 - - 1. Lives at 37 in a lean-to; small garden. - - 2. Lives at 5 in a partially ruined house; has an _épicerie_, - in which we have stocked him, 1 pony, 30 young rabbits, 4 hens. - - 7. Lives at 7 in a barn; has 10 hens, small garden. - - 8. House occupied by Tabary, M.; has nothing. - - 10. Mme. Payelle lives here in a barn; does not belong in - village; has nothing. - - 11. Lives at 11 in a barn; has bought cow, horse, 24 rabbits, 9 - hens. - - 12. Lives at 12 in a _baraque_; has a small garden. - - 13. Lives at 16 in a barn; has large market garden and employs - one worker (Mme. Correon). - - 14. Lives at 18 in a shed; has 2 horses, 10 hens, 10 rabbits, - large garden. - - 15. Mme. Musqua lives here; formerly factory worker, never - owned land, has nothing. - - 17. Lives at 17 in a shed; has 3 hens, 2 rabbits, small garden. - - 18. Lives at 18 in a partially ruined house; has 3 hens, large - garden. In her stable she houses Mme. Barbier, a worker in the - fields. - - 19. Lives at 42 in one room; has a garden. - - 23. Lives at 44 in an ell; has a cow, 8 hens, large garden. - - 24. (Father of prisoner) lives here, with 46. - - 30. Lives at 34 in a cottage; works for 13, has nothing. - - 32. M. Lecart lives here in a cottage; formerly coachman at - Château; has nothing. - - 39. Lives at 39 in a barn; has a large garden. - - 42. Mme. Tabary, L., lives here in partially ruined house, - never owned land; has a goat. - - 43. Mme. Cerf, who used to rent 46, lives in a barn; has a few - hens and a garden. - - 44. Lives at 44, with her daughter (see 23). - - 45. Lives at 16 in a shed; has a garden. - - 46. Lives at 24 in a barn; has a garden. - - 47. Lives at 47 in a chicken house; has 4 hens, 1 rabbit. - -At the Château live three families, formerly employed on the estate. They -have gardens. - -In all, there are 100 persons in Canizy. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] From Poulbot’s _Des Gosses et des Bonhommes_. - -[2] From the Almanach Hachette. - -[3] Deux Années d’Invasion Espagnole en Picardie, 1635-1636. Alcius -Ledieu. - -[4] Almanach Hachette, 1918, quoted from the _Berliner Tageblatt_. - -[5] Incomes as regulated in August, 1917. - -_Allocation militaire_: - - Soldier, 25 c. per day. - Family, 1 fr. 25 c. for mother. - 1 fr. 25 c. for child 16 or over. - 75 c. for child up to 16. - -_Allocation de réfugié or chômage_: - - Adults, 1 fr. 25 c. per day. - Children, 50 c. per day. - -_War Pensions_: - - Widows of soldiers, 580 fr. per year. - Children, each, 600 fr. per year. - -_Réformées_: - - If wounded, a réformé receives a pension. - -_Médaille militaire_: - - This carries a pension. - - -[6] Introduction à la histoire générale de la Province de Picardie. Dom -Grenier. - -[7] Where no information is given as to property, no member of the family -remains in the village. It should be understood that every family had -some member, or members, with the colours, or _avec les Boches_, or both. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VILLAGE IN PICARDY *** - -***** This file should be named 63637-0.txt or 63637-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/6/3/63637/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |