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 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 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 —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 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 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 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 —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 |