Tombstone epitaph., 1915-04-04
(Copyright, The Frank A. Munsey Co.)
Kathryn Jarboe

(CopyriGht, The trank A. Munsey Co.)
 Under the yellow August sunlight the fields lay deserted; here a scythe there a sickle rustins on the stubble. The twilight fell upon deserted hearths where women. with trembling fingers. cooked their scanty meals. The round. full moon looked down upon scattered homes where only the children slept. where the women wept and shuddered and waited
 For the men had marched away un- der the brilliant. Haunting colors. None had been too old to go, none too young Their lips had shouted the raucous notes, the valiant words Honneur. Patrie, Gloire-but every eye was wet. every heart heavy with despair and terror.
 Bibi had watched them go, the tiny staff in his clenched fingers beating time to the brave music. to the hur- rying feet. but, in the nameless ter TOT that had descended upon the land. he clung to the old grandmother's hand and. when all were gone-fa- ther. uncle. brother-he flung himself sobbing upon the ground The wom- an, left alone in the world save for the small grandchild. watched with eyes too old for tears until there was no longer even a cloud of dust upon the horizon: then she turned and hob bled into the empty house, leaving the child still lying there upon the lonely road.
 Before the hearth she sat. seeing the long procession of all the others who, under that same tricolor, had marched out. away from her life, never to return. Hours later, when Bibi came in. his little tragedy all for gotten, his face reflecting only the golden glory of the summer day, he found her sitting there. dry-eyed, her shriyeled lips muttering prayers for those already dead, for those about to die. Into her shaking hands he thrust his offering-a nosegay of bluets, the color of the sky. of field-poppies, a flame of red, and mullein. white with the dust of the road-the tricolor that had taken from them grandfather. father. husband and sons.
 A choking sob slipped across her lips and she flung the flowers from her on to the hearth, where the red petals of the poppies lay in mimicry of the fire that might never again blaze thereon.
 Days passed: only a fev-Bibi could not count them, Mere Craquette would not The heavy-headed blades of grain lay prone upon the ground, ungarnere1 by the hands. that were too tiny, the hcnds that were too old There were others, of course. in that deserted land, as loieIy as tnes2 two, but there were no other quite so helpless-a child of six, grandam 0f eighty-six. Indoors, the woman coulC only sit and pray. Out of doors. the child played with his flowers-bluets, bits of the sky, poppies, red as blood. and mullein, dried and ghastly white. The short-lived poppies dropped and fell to the earth, the muliein crumbled to dust, only the bluets were left. And then there dawned the day of horror. For hours of light and dark ness the roar of cannon had filled the universe, for hours of light and dark ! ness the grandmother had knelt quiv- | ering and trembling before the cruel. fix. At daybreak the low horizon stretched-a long line of fire and smoke; flames licking up the parched fields with the novels that stood in | hni lot a pail across the sky.
 la the gray light before the sun had | risen Mere Craquette stood in the doorway and watched the oncoming | devastation, a foeman that feet, how. ever young and agile, might not out distance, that no human hand might stay. Clutching Bibi by the wrist, she re-entered the house and closed the door. Better to die crouched before the cross. with suppliant hands upon it's succoring feet. than to be caught creeping and crawling through the fields of matted grain
 For a little time Bibi lay quiet 1T her arms. listening to the ever-in creasing roar, watching the light tha even now was redder than any ray: of sunlight that had ever flooded tho windows of his home. Soon, though he grew restless and slipped away from the feeble hands that, with thu passing of all things earthly, had al most forgotten to hold him Out O. doors the horizon was still only lin, of red and black, and Bibi could no know that it was a score of mile. nearer to his home than it had beer a short hour before. Here and ther. above the broken grain there waved a tiny flag of blue. Upon his baby lip. fragments of "Honneur, Gloire. Patrie.
 he ran to and fro gathering his be loved bluets.
 Tired. stified by the heat. the sourc, of which he could not understand, h, sat down at the edge of the road. Ant nov there was a new sound in the ali not the deadly roar of the cannon that had thundered for two whol,
 days. not the rush of flame, but l, steady. rhythmic throb that, with ev cry instant. grew nearer and louder Bibes mind, already confused by tn, |