better stop this noise. I will write you again soon, and tell you more
about how perfectly lovely it is here. Until then don't worry about me
not having a good rest and a splendid time, for I am. I have already
plans as to what a lot more work Rootie and I can do this winter, now
that we will be the oldest workers--not in years, but in time. Lots and
lots of love to all. You have none of you said whether you liked or even
read my letter about going up to the front. I sent it by Ibby with the
pictures and relics for Josey.
Lots and lots of love from
Your daughter,
MARJE.
XXIII
FROM ESTHER
Villa Valérie, Val André, Côtes-du-Nord,
Sunday morning, August 26.
DEAREST FAMILY:--
Last week I let time and the postman creep up on me so that I didn't
have time to write, but I hope from my meager notes you have been able
to get some sort of an idea of Val André and of our household here. It
has been a month of glorious weather, with such clouds and shadows as I
never saw before I had a paint-box. The cliffs are high and rounded,
covered with gorse, thistles, and other wild flowers. They drop steeply
down to a rocky base, and then smooth away in a glorious beach. Val
André and the headlands just to the north form a sort of ace of clubs,
with beaches in between. The big popular beach, edged by pink and
turquoise bathing-houses and high-shouldered stone villas, we shun
consistently. In the afternoon it is rather lovely to watch the
ever-active little French children, barelegged and nimble, build
sand-castles to stand on triumphantly until the incoming tide has
flattened out their afternoon's work. The dark-haired bonnes sit in
groups on camp-chairs and sew as they gossip, and here and there a
deeply veiled mother makes a dark note as she sits quietly in the shade
of a brilliantly striped awning.
There is a military hospital in an old convent on the main road, and the
convalescents wander around, or lean out of the windows. These and the
occasional permissionnaires are the only close reminders of the war that
we have. The beautiful rolling wheat-fields behind our villa are
cultivated by women, and it makes my back ache to watch them lean over,
hour after hour, their sunburned hands making heavy bundles of wheat.
We have spent two or three glorious nights in a favorite hollow on the
hillside, just at the top of the highest falaise. We put the two big
hold-alls on the ground, then a coat, then ourselves, then blankets. You
never saw such stars. Early in that first morning we heard voices down
on the beach below, and saw the fisherwomen with their lanterns taking
fish out of big nets stretched on the sand.
Then the dawn came, and a pink and lavender and yellow sunrise. We sat
up on our elbows and watched. The sand was wet, and the grass about us
covered with dew. The light comes so subtly.
We didn't wake again until after eight. Marje and I scrambled down the
cliff and had a delicious swim. The water was a clear emerald and the
foam as white as white!
We have had a glorious time with Miss Curtis--Aunt Midge, as we call
her. The daughter of the family with whom she and Miss Sturgis have
lived, Mlle. Griette, came on Thursday and makes a fascinating sixth to
our party. Her father was president of the Collège de France and a
well-known man. She is cultured to a degree, about twenty-four, and
simply charming. She understands English perfectly,--her knowledge of
English literature puts Marje and me to shame,--yet she hates to speak a
word. In consequence, we speak English and she French, and the effect is
sometimes joyous in the extreme.
Yesterday afternoon we went crabbing. Some of the costumes had to be
improvised, and I'll describe no more minutely than to say that they
ranged from simplest in-wading to full bathing-suits. It is wild sport,
especially if you are particularly fond of crab-meat with mayonnaise,
and yet your fingers have a natural timidity!
Tableau of Marje and Mlle. Griette kneeling on slippery seaweed,
prettily reflected in a pool.
"By golly, there goes one!"
"Où est-ce?"
"Oh, a big green one. Look under that rock, I bet he's--"
"Zut! Il s'est échappé--sale bête!!"
"Not on your tintype--not while Sister Marje has a say-so--I've got my
finger in the small of his back; you hold him while I get the net."
"Oh, mais, en void un plus grand! Où vastu, mon vieux? Oh, Oh, il me
tient! Oh, là, là!--Il manque de charme, celui-ci--enfin ça est"--etc.,
etc.
For two hours we splashed around, chasing and pouncing and yelling, and
got in all sixteen crabs--some whoppers. Then we took a luscious swim in
the clear sunlit water.
This mixture of dolce far niente and a lark is going to put us in fine
trim for the fall work. Don't forget, Father, you're going to get some
confiding editor or journalist to send me to the devastated towns?
Love,
ESTHER.
XXIV
FROM ESTHER
September 4, 1917.
DEAREST MOTHER:--
The cable came yesterday afternoon and caused a great stir in this
little ménage, I can tell you. I hope to go to the Embassy to-day and
get my papers through. Father was a dear to accomplish my wish. I'm
grateful; but so excited that I'm shaky, and what did I have to do this
morning but run into a taxicab, and we've spent hours writing a formal
statement to the insurance companies in both French and English; and I
only broke one spoke of his wheel, but it is too embêtant for words. We
have to send them notice within twenty-four hours and I don't want that
taxi-driver to have a show at making a fuss.
Mrs. Shurtleff finally got a laisser-passer to go to the evacuated
villages with clothes for the people left there, and she and Miss Curtis
left Friday in the jitney. Miss Curtis has lent us her Ford touring-car
until her return, and, believe me, we have hardly let the engine cool
off. Saturday afternoon we did shopping, and it was such a joy to be
able to go about from place to place in the heat without having to think
of taxis or walking or anything. I asked Miss Hubbard where to get a
nice dress. The only thing I have to wear is the old blue-and-tan, and
its clutch on life is weakening visibly. The lace and net are torn to
shreds, the sleeves that I put in last spring are hanging by a thread,
and Leo has nothing on it for spots.
Well, she told me to go to Jenny, she being the least expensive of all
the good places. I said, "How much do you suppose the cheapest little
frock would be?" and she said, "Oh, of course, she doesn't touch
anything under seven hundred francs--but they wear forever, and it would
be wonderful for our business." "I guess it would be death on mine," I
told her, and I should have to hear more directly from headquarters
before any such altruistic venture. After the war, I'd just like to get
something wonderful, but not for now, unless Father wants me to!
So Marje and I went modestly to the Printemps, and having decided that
our pet aversions were bottle green and elbow sleeves, we bought
dresses, exactly alike, with those two features as keynotes. We simply
had to have something for a dinner to-morrow night, and really they're
not bad. We'll have some one take our pictures together. Then Saturday
evening we had dinner together downtown, and went out to Saint-Germain.
I never felt such heat. We got to our beloved Mme. Poitier's where I
stayed when I was ill, and she said that she had received our telegram
too late and that all she had was a single room under the roof. You
can't imagine how hot it was. We laughed our heads off because, of
course, our rooms in Paris are nearly always cool. But we bunked as well
as we could. I spent half the night on the floor with one pillow lying
on a strip of oilcloth which was the coolest thing in sight. We had
boiled eggs for breakfast, which made up amply for any discomfort.
We read and slept and explored the lovely cool forest on Sunday, so
different now from the last week of April.
Monday evening we met Mrs. Allen and Mary and had a picnic supper in the
wild part of the Bois de Boulogne on the banks of the Seine. We had an
awfully good time--a beautiful evening and luscious cheese and guava
jelly that Miss Curtis and Miss Sturgis gave me on my birthday.
Last night Marje took Miss Sturgis and me to Armenonville for dinner;
the swellest place right in the Bois, with all the officers and their
fine friends of the bonton there, eating melon at five francs a slice.
We had a great time--we saw several American officers tramp in, among
them André de Coppet. He nearly fell over when he saw me. We had quite a
chat about his coming over at the last moment as interpreter.
More nice young boys are wending their way Parisward--and in particular
to Place Denfert-Rochereau. Davis Ripley made a long call the other
afternoon with a Harvard coeval; and a letter of introduction from Mrs.
Hastings this afternoon presents a Holyoke youth. People keep coming
from Boston to see Marje, and we are kept pretty busy.
* * * * *
I started this on the way to work this morning and couldn't finish. Now
we have finished work and it is tea-time. We have been taking turns
driving around wet, slippery streets making calls, and Marje is calling
me to tea and the remains of the guava.
Your letters have been most interesting lately and my next ought to be
so!
Love,
ESTHER.
XXV
FROM ESTHER
September 9, 1917.
DEAREST FATHER:--
I've been there! Past the sentries, through the devastated villages,
right into the army zone.
How many pictures I've seen marked, "Somewhere in France," or, "Results
of German Shells." How endlessly have I pored over Sunday supplements or
watched miles of film click by, trying always to imagine myself really
standing on French soil, seeing real things. But the pictures were
always just black and white, and I never managed to step into them.
The refugees at the Vestiaire tell vivid stories, and they all have that
inborn dramatic instinct which can make live the scenes they describe.
But even from their background I had no idea of the look and atmosphere
of the ruined towns as they now are. No one ever told me that the
trenches taken from the Germans a few months ago would now be half
hidden by long grass and brilliant red poppies, nor that the summer
sunshine could ever soften the grimness of barbed wire and dug-outs.
Yesterday I saw for myself.
Compiègne is the sentinel to the "zone des armées." At the railroad
station you must present your sauf-conduit before you go through the
gate, and frown as you do so, for certainly the official will frown at
you. The streets are full of soldiers and officers, blue with them, and
great military trucks grind past at every turn. Even the churchyard is
filled with lines of military wagons, and horses were tethered at its
portals.
We arranged to have a bite to eat at the hotel, and I, for one, was
surprised at the naturalness and comfort of the atmosphere. One of us,
after standing at the elevator shaft several minutes, turned to the
manager of the hotel and asked if she would have long to wait. "I hope
not, Madame," he said,--"just until the end of the war."
As we ate our luncheon we looked from the dining-window across the big
square to the palace, now used as military headquarters. The sentries
passed and repassed with their heavy guns before the entrance gate.
Our military cars, painted dull gray with the numbers in white across
the wind shield, were waiting to take us on our wonderful journey. As we
left the narrow streets of Compiègne, we passed several motors bearing
important-looking officers going to or from the front; they tore around
corners in just my idea of a warlike way--very little gold braid, but
business-like and grim.
The country was lovely: rolling fields, and deep woods, rich with
foliage. My idea of a devastated region had been a large plain, covered
with small ruined villages, blackened by smoke. I had pictured
everything bare and muddy--no grass, lowering clouds; but here was
blazing sunlight, and such grass and flowers as I had never seen.
At Noyon we were joined by a French lieutenant, who acted as guide to
us, and was High Mogul to all guards and officials along our route. He
looked skeptical of a party of women, even Americans (who are known to
be wild), tearing along on the roads where only soldiers, trucks, and
beasts of burden are seen.
The crops interested me very much. Large fields of wheat and barley, as
well as trim lines of lettuce and garden truck, were on each side of the
road near every settlement. I asked who planted them. "Different
people," said our lieutenant; "the people who have been living here
right along under the Germans, the soldiers who delivered the territory
last March, the civil population who came back to their homes when the
Boches were driven out."
Until March 18th, the Germans held French territory up to the line
passing through Rossières, Andréhy, Lassigny, Ribecourt, and Soissons.
They retreated on that date, and the present line passes just west of
Saint-Quentin, La Fère, and Barésis. Our route was a big circle through
the section between these lines among the towns most lately relinquished
by the invader.
I felt reluctant to be whisked along so fast, for I wanted to see just
how these bridges had been blown up. I wanted to ask that old man over
there, hoeing in the field with a tiny little girl beside him in a black
apron, what he had seen and felt, and how he liked the Boches. But we
seemed always to keep the same pace.
At Chauny we slowed up, however. We passed down an aisle of ruins, and
stopped in a big square. We were told: "They are shelling the town, so
that you run a risk if you stop here, but they seem to be lazy to-day,
so don't worry." I was so glad to get out of the car and wander around
according to my fancy, that I didn't give a thought to the possibility
of shells. And I couldn't see why they should want to keep on firing, as
there didn't seem much more to do to the place. I stood at first and
looked about me. Not one roof to be seen--just walls, and not more than
one or two stories of these. Nothing horizontal--just the perpendicular
skeletons of buildings, and piles, piles, piles of stone in between.
The streets have been cleared of rubbish, by the French, so that the
square or "place" looked as neat and ready for market-day as though the
market-women might come at any moment with their pushcarts, station
themselves in the center, and display piles of carrots, cherries,
potatoes, and radishes to tempt the passing throng.
But the passing throng had passed somewhere else. We saw nobody. On one
side was a wall marked "Théâtre"--just the front of it left, all the
rest ruins. Across the square was a large building with "Palais de
Justice" carved over the portal, portions of the front ripped away so
that we could see the different rooms and central staircase leading up,
and up, to nothing.
Down the cobbled streets which radiated from the square were the remains
of the shops and homes of the people of Chauny. Ruins everywhere. The
houses had evidently been blown up from within, causing the roofs and
floors to fall in a heap into the cellar, so that it was difficult to
walk in and look about. The town has, of course, been shelled as well as
mined; the Germans were determined to wipe it out completely, so that
the iron and sugar industries which made Chauny well known may never be
resumed.
The strangest kind of things would be lying in the piles of débris--an
iron bedstead, twisted and red with rust, an old baby carriage, a boot,
a candlestick, all sorts of little domestic things. In many houses the
tiled fireplaces were intact, and stood up among all the wreckage. Our
lieutenant climbed into one of the houses and brought back a few tiles
which he gave us. Mine is a heavenly turquoise blue, smooth and perfect.
It is the one relic that I cared to keep. I prefer it to a charred brick
or a bent piece of iron. It was there in its place in the war, during
the burning and pillaging, and weathered the bombs and the shells.
Through the back windows were vistas of grass and trees. I saw an
enchanting ravine with a stony brook running through it, and gardens,
full of rank grass and weeds. Here and there a holly bush looked about
in surprise at being so neglected this year.
The church in Chauny is only half destroyed. Most of the roof has been
blown up, and the west end of the nave is piled high with wreckage, but
the altar is untouched and there is enough roof left to shelter about
ten rows of seats. A rough partition of wood and tarred paper has been
built across the middle of the church, which divides the piles of broken
stone, open to the blazing sunlight, from the altar half hidden and dim.
It was very quiet. I heard a bird chirping near by, and saw two sparrows
fly through an opening and perch on a cornice over the cross. There is
not much left in Chauny even for a bird.
The road leading north runs beside an embankment high enough to screen a
motor from view. Where this embankment stops, a huge screen has been
built of boughs woven in and out of a wire foundation; thus the road is
hidden for miles, and military trucks, ammunition trains, themselves
"camouflés," pass to and fro unobserved.
Near Villquiers-Aumont we began to see the cut-down fruit trees: I don't
know whether to say fields of fruit trees, or orchards; for what we saw
were rolling green fields, with fruit trees lying prone in even rows,
their naked branches--
"Bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang"
--ruined carefully and deliberately.
We stopped near an abrupt little hill. It looked like a giant thimble,
with a rustic summer-house on top. This was once Prince Eitel
Friedrich's lookout, and as we climbed up the carefully made stone
steps, we saw more and more of the wonderful view he had chosen. French
landscapes stretched away on every side, smooth fields, winding roads,
and poplars. The group of poilus who were stationed in the lookout gave
us a gay welcome. They were ready with information about the surrounding
countryside, and pointed out the various villages in the distance. The
officer in charge lent us his field-glasses and showed us to the north
the spires of the cathedral at Saint-Quentin--still held by the Boches.
We took a détour in order to see the grave of Sergeant McConnell, the
American aviator who was killed last spring. A French flag and two
American flags nailed to a wooden cross mark the grave; fifty yards away
are a few splinters of iron and wood, the remains of his aeroplane,
which indicate the spot where he fell. Some splinters of wood, some
rusty bits of iron, part of the engine, are all that is left of his
aeroplane. As I looked back towards the grave I saw our soldier
chauffeur stooping to place a bunch of wild poppies below the flags. He
walked back to his place at the wheel without knowing that I had seen
him. It was a small thing, but I felt grateful to the American who had
made a simple Frenchman wish to pay this tribute. I felt, too, a warm
pride to think of this corner of a foreign field (to paraphrase Rupert
Brooke) that is forever America!
We went next to Flavy-le-Martel. This town is half ruined and is
inhabited only by soldiers. The great sight is a ruined factory, which
is now a grotesque pile of rubbish--wheels and boilers and chimneys; the
mass of broken stone and twisted iron is heaped to an immense height and
in extent it looked to one like an acre of pure destruction.
Suddenly we heard discomforting sounds--guns, big guns, and not very far
away. The entrance gate to the factory had been locked and barred with a
sign, "No Admittance," in large letters, and we had to enter through a
hole in the fence, but certainly that couldn't mean that we were doing
anything dangerous? One of the soldiers working near by motioned
upwards, and we caught sight of a Boche aeroplane disappearing in a big
white cloud--lesser white clouds kept multiplying as the French
anti-aircraft guns fired on. Each shot sounded like hitting a barn door
with a baseball--only fifty times as loud. I was all for standing with
my neck craned waiting to see what would happen next, but the soldiers
gave one laconic look (if a look can be laconic) at the signs in the
heavens, and walked off to the "abri" or shelter. Our lieutenant asked
us to follow, so down we plunged into a little cellar-like place after
the soldiers.
"Five men were wounded here yesterday by pieces of flying shell," said
one of them; "so, Mon Dieu! it is not worth the trouble to make one's
self a target to-day."
That seemed sensible enough, but it had never occurred to me that
anything would ever come down and hit me. I'm not a soldier, I'm not
even French, and everything about the front has always been a name to me
until now. What am I usually doing the first week in July? I'm helping
the kids set off firecrackers down on the beach--on a good old American
beach; or getting the mail at the post-office to read the latest war
news. Zum-zum! and here I am crouched down in an abri with some poilus,
and a German biplane a mile in the air straight over my head. Wouldn't
it be funny if--I wonder how thick the roof of this place is, anyway?
Zum, zum, ZUM! How foolish to drop bombs on a place that is destroyed,
anyway.
The firing became less frequent and the explosions farther off. We
climbed out to the great outdoors again, and looked around. Nothing to
be seen or heard. Just as we started off, a last zum! and a fleeting
glimpse of the Boche disappeared gayly into a cloud. That was a week
ago; I'm wondering if they have got him by now.
Along the road on the way to Ham were rows of neat little brick and
stone houses, so unlike anything I had seen that their very neatness
looked strange. "The soldiers have already begun rebuilding," said the
lieutenant. And they have done well, may I add; the architecture is of
an unimaginative, cubelike variety, but a touch of poetry is supplied by
the white muslin curtains and climbing nasturtiums! The soldiers,
working with sleeves rolled up and with gorgeous red sashes round their
waists, smiled and waved as we passed, and if we had slowed down who
knows but that we should have had an invitation to tea; with a Boche
avion only just lost from view.
It was an interesting road all the way. We met a priest trotting
comfortably down the road on a fat chestnut mare. His gown fluttered and
his beads swung by his side in time to the horse's gait. We all felt
included in his smile as he lifted his shallow-crowned, wide-brimmed hat
in greeting; we Americans bowed, the militaires saluted inflexibly.
Next we saw--or rather were stopped by--a herd of cows. They looked
utterly peaceful and oblivious, and along with the window curtains and
nasturtiums that we had just seen on leaving Flavy-le-Martel, they
seemed to give hope that the forlorn shells of houses might one day
become homes again. I asked our lieutenant what the enemy had done with
the cattle that they had found when they came. He answered, smiling
broadly, "Zay ett heem!"
Ham is interesting chiefly for its ancient château. The town itself is
only partially destroyed, and there are at the moment fifteen hundred
and thirty civilians living there. We got out of the motor by the bank
of the canal, and looked first at the havoc wrought to it and the
bridges. The sides have been blown up and great masses of stone have
fallen into the ditch stopping up the deepest part of it. Rude wooden
bridges have been built to replace the stone ones and to carry the
traffic of trucks and military cars that are constantly passing. The
trees that once stood in even rows along the banks have totally
disappeared. Not a stump is left.
The canal widens just south of the main road, and begins to have the
aspect of a stone quarry. There is a vast area of broken stone; groups
of workmen applying themselves with pick and shovel; iron cars drawn by
mules moving here and there; and the noise of incessant labor. Across
the excavation stands a great wall, fifty feet high, split down the
middle as though by a stroke of lightning. Over the top you can just see
the tower, with a pointed slate roof.
"But where's the château?" some one asked.
"Le voilà," said our guide.
Oh, the hours of labor that must be put in to restore what was once
built so carefully. New trees will be planted, but the chateau can never
be replaced. It's all unspeakable!