The armies of the world were contending on the
battlefields of France in a death struggle, known
in history as the World War. It was a mighty clash
of ideas and ideals. Frazier Hunt, a war
correspondent and journalist, selected the Little
Rivers of France as a subject to carry his theme:
that little things sometimes set apart great
differences, and that littleness and greatness are
not matters of physical size.
For miles along the hard white road that had helped
save France a tiny river ran. But it was such a quiet
race with life and time. It had no steep banks; only gentle,
green, silent slopes that fell gracefully back from its edges.
Here and there fragrant woods wandered almost to its 5
drowsy waters.
A cuckoo sounded its call, and far off its mate sent
back the echo. On sun-splashed mornings the thrush
came, and in the moonlight the nightingale sang to
this little stream. 10
It was a tiny river, and if in great America, only the
countryside that knew its winding ways could have told
its name. It was a brook for poets to dream by. Little
islands of willows, weeping for France, slept in its heart.
One could almost whisper across it, and as a French schoolgirl 15
of fourteen wrote, "Birds could fly over it with one
sweep of their wings. And on the two banks there were
millions of men, the one turned towards the other, eye to
eye. But the distance which separated them was greater
than the stars in the sky; it was the distance which separates
right from injustice."
It was a tiny river; it was the Yser.
* * * * *
Oxen drawing the cultivating plows that will help feed
France and win the war almost splash into its shallow edges 5
as they turn the furrow. And on hot July days, the old
man who prods them with his pointed stick and the sturdy
woman who handles the plow let them drink their fill of
its cooling waters--not plunging their noses deep like
thirsty horses but gently drawing in the water with the lips, 10
after the manner of oxen.
It is a quiet stream that a child could ford without danger.
It flows slowly and sweetly from the mother hills to the
embracing sea. A few arched bridges leap from one low
bank to another. It has not cut deep into the land of 15
France but it has cut deep into the heart of France. It is
one of the ribbons of victory and glory that France will
always wear across her breast. And it is a ribbon made red
by the blood of the men of France who have died for France.
And yet we of America would call it a little stream, and 20
old men would fish all day in it from a shaded velvet point,
and boys swimming would hunt some favorite Devil's Hole
where they might dive.
It is the Marne.
* * * * *
For four years now it has flowed peacefully on while 25
men have fought to scar its banks with trenches--burrowing
themselves into the earth as only the muskrat had done
in the forgotten days of peace. Strong, unafraid men came
from the ends of the world to die by its side. And it would
have gladly sung them a sweet, low lullaby, crooning a song 30
with which mothers on the shores of all the seven seas had
once rocked them to sleep--only now the sound of heavy
firing, dull booms of the cannon, and the spit and nervous
drum of the machine gun, made its song as futile and indistinguishable
as the whisper of a child in the roar of a mob. 5
What a story its sweet waters had to tell to all the rivers
of the world when they met in the broad sea: a tale of
strange men who fought and died that it might still be a
part of France; a tale of deeds of glory and of valor and
of sacrifice. And some of these men had come from faraway 10
America to this little river, this stream so tiny and so
modest that it might have forever remained unknown and
unsung.
It was the Somme.
* * * * *
After all, what does size matter--except the size of the 15
heart and of the soul?
The great Mississippi, the mystic Amazon, the majestic
Hudson, the wide Danube--all mighty in power and commerce!
The Yser, the Aisne, the Oise, the Somme, the Marne--little 20
streams of France; old brooks as precious as Thermopylæ
or Bunker Hill!
Tiny are they--and so was Bethlehem!
--_Red Cross Magazine._
1. What three rivers are discussed? For what does
each stand?
2. Explain the French schoolgirl's letter. Which
party, to her, represented justice?
3. What great general is called the "Hero of the
Marne"? Why?
4. Why are Thermopylæ and Bunker Hill "previous"?
Name some other "precious" places in the world.