The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1915-04-02
In the Path
Of Battle
gQ
-By--
Kathryn Jarboe
Kathryn Jarboe
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Copyright, The Frank A. Munsey Coz

| Copyright, The Frank A. Munsey Coz
Under the yellow August sunlight
| the fields lay deserted; here a scythe
| leaning against half-completed stack
| there sickle rusting 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 I'M
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.
Bib 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
ror that had descended upon the land,
he chung to the old grandmother
hand and, when all were gone-fa-
Their, 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
Bib came in, his little tragedy all for
gotten, his face rejecting only the
golden glory of the summer day, he
found her sitting there, dry-eyed, her
shriveled lips muttering prayers for
those already dead, for those about to
die. Into her shaking hands he thrust
his offering-a nosegay of duets, the
color of the sky, of field-poppies, a
flame of red, and mullen. 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 peoples lay in mimicry of the
fire that might never again blaze
thereon.
Days passed; only a few-Bibi |
could not count them, Mere Craquette |
would not. The heavy-headed blades |
of grain lay prone upon the ground, |
by the hands that were too
tiny, the hands that were too old. |
There were others, of course, in that |
but there were no other quite so
helpless-a child of six, grandam of
eighty-six. Indoors, the woman could
only sit and pray. Out of doors, the
child played with his fowers-bluets,
bits of the sky, peoples, red as blood,
and MULLEN, a dried and CHASTITY white.
rhe short-lived peoples dropped and
ell to the earth, the mullen crumbled
% dust, only the duets were left.
And then there dawned the day of
lorror. For hours of light and dark
hess the roar, of cannon had filled the
for hours of light and dark
less the grandmother had knelt quiv-
.ring and trembling before the cruel.
tx. At daybreak the low horizon
,tretched-a long line of fire and
smoke; flames licking up the parched
ields with the novels that stood in
heir midst, blackssmoke creeping like
. pail across the sky.
In the gray light before the sun had
'isen Mere Craquette stood in the
doorway and watched the oncoming
a foeman that feet, how
,ver young and agile, might not out
distance, that no human hand might
tay. Clutching Bib by the wrist, she
e-entered the house and closed the
Ioor. Better to die crouched before
he cross, with suppliant hands upon ;
is succoring feet, than to be caught
Keeping and crawling through the
elds of matted grain.
For little time Bib lay quiet in
Ter arms, listening to the ever-in- {
reasing roar, watching the light that l
ven now was redder than any rays &
f sunlight that had ever flooded the {
Tindows OF his home. Soon, though, I
e grew restless and slipped away
rom the feeble hands that, with the !
assing of all things earthly, had al |
lost forgotten to hold him. Out of 4
oors the horizon was still only line 6
red and black, and Bib could not {
now that it was a score of miles
carer to his home than it had been
short hour before. Here and there
ooye the broken grain there waved d
tiny flag of blue. Upon his baby lips b
agments of ''Honneur, Gloire, Patrie," I
> ran to and fro gathering his be- a
we'd bluets. 7
Tired, stif1ed by the heat, the source D
which he could not understand, he Il
It down at the edge of the road. And tt
Nv there was a new sound in the air Il
not sthe deadly roar of the cannon Ii
at had Numbered for two whole tt
lys, not the rush of flame, but 81
ea(1y rhythmfC t}reb that with ov- or