Read Ebook: A Village in Picardy by Gaines Ruth Neilson William Allan Author Of Introduction Etc Poulbot Francisque Illustrator

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I UN VILLAGE TOUT OUBLI? 3

II LE CH?TEAU DE BON-S?JOUR 16

V MME. GABRIELLE 61

VI VOIL? LA MIS?RE 74

X A LA FERME DU CALVAIRE 129

Map of the German Retreat 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

"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.

A VILLAGE IN PICARDY

UN VILLAGE TOUT OUBLI?

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.

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.

Such, peaceful, prosperous, yet stirred by family bickerings enough to spice its days, was Canizy before the war.

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.

LE CH?TEAU DE BON-S?JOUR

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 Ch?teau, 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.

M. LE MAIRE

O CRUX, AVE

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 co?peration 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.

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.

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."

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 Cur?, a prisoner, and the teacher, transferred to the school at Hombleux, looked up in this way to Mme. Lef?vre 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 Champ?tre at Hombleux. Or, had I neither the time nor the patience, Mme. Lef?vre 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. Lef?vre, 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.

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.

"You have seen Russians?"

"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."

VOIL? LA MIS?RE

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 No?l. 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.

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