The Climax-Madisonian. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1914-1917, 1915-08-25
In the Path
of Battle
gQ
Kathryn Jarboe
Kathryn Jarboe

Under the yellow August sunlight
the fields lay deserted; here a scythe
leaning against a half-completed stack,
there a 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's
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 few-Bibi
could not count them, Mere Craquette
would not The heavy-headed blades
of grain lay prone upon the ground.
ungarnered by the hands that were too
tiny, the hands that were too old.
There were others, of course, in that
deserted land, as lonely as these two,
but there were no other quite so
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, dried and CHASTITY white.
The shortliyed peoples dropped and
fell to the earth, the mullen 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 filed the
universe, for hours of light and dark
ness the grandmother had knelt quiv-
ering and trembling before the cruel
/
1 stretched-a long line OF fire and
smoke; flames licking up the parched
fields with the novels that stood in
their midst, black smoke creeping like
a pail across the sky.
In 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 Bib by the wrist, she
re-entered the house and closed the
door. Better to die crouched before
the cross, with suppliant hands upon
its succoring feet, than to be caught
creeping and crawling through the
fields of matted grain.
For little time Bib lay quiet i:
her arms. listening to the ever-s':