The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-09-13
ny RuDYARD KIPLING.
Copyright in [. S. A.. 1915, bv Rudyqrd
. hipiinJ.

'opU 'DHt W Go. n, 1870 ~ hUdUuTU
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Special Gable Despatch 10 TnE SITS.
l.oNDoN. Sept. I've passed into
the zone of another army and a hitler
more sheltered. Here and there a
town and the fields around It gave us
a glimpse of the furious industry
with which France makes and handles
her material and trooys. with her
as with us, the wounded officer Of ex-
perlence goes back TO the drill ground
to train the new ~levies. but ii was al
ways the little crowded. defiant viii
lagos with the civil population waiting
unweariedly and cheerfully on the un-
wearIed and cheerful army that went
closest to the heart.
TAX those pictures caught almost
anywhere during a journcy-a knot
of little Childi en- in difficulties with the
village fountain or high handled pump.
A soldier. bearded and fatherly Or
young and slim and therefore rather
shy Of the big girls chan. comes for
ward and lifts the hail or swings the
handle. His reward from the smallest
babe swung in the air or. II he Is an
older man, pressed against his knees.
is a kiss. Then nobody laughs.
The Missing Wine.
or a lat old lady making Grafton
against some wicked young conscripts
who, she says. know what happened
to n certain bottle of wine. land |
meant IL for all; yes. for all of you,
this evening instead OF for the thieves
who stole IL; yes. tell you. stole IL"
The whole street hears her; SO does
the officer who pretends not to. and
the amused half battalion up the road.
The young men express penitence. She
growls like a thunderstorm. but soft
ching at last cuffs and drives them
a~ffectionately before her. They are all
one family.
Or the girl at work with the horses
in a ~ploughed field that is dotted with
graves. The machine nus avoid each
sacred plot. so. hands on plough Hts.
her hair flying forward. she shouts and
wrenches till her little mother runs up
and swings the team out of the furrow.
Every aspect and detail of life in
France seems overlaid with a smooth
patina of long continued war. every
thing except the spirit of the people.
and that is as fresh ard glorious as
the sight Of their own land in the
sunshine or the French woman.
We found "A city mons the hills
which knew itself to he a prize greatly
coveted by the Kaiser, for truly II
was a pleasant. "A desirable and an
insolent city. Its streets were fun Of
life; 1t boosted an establishment as
big as Harrod's full of buyers and
it's women dressed and shod them
selves with care and grace. as BELTS
ladies who at any time may he ripped
into rags by bombs from aeroplanes,
And there was another city whose
population seemed to be all soldiers
in training and yet another given up
to big guns and ammunition-an eX-
traordinary sight.
An Ugly, Stricken Town.
After that we came to a little town
of pale stone which an army had
made its headquarters, i. sort of for
gotten provincial sub-centre that in
the dirty old days some materialistic
novelist would have exploited in 300
pages. Now it looked like a plain
woman who had tainted in public. It
|, had rejoiced in many public institu-
tons tina were turned into hospitals
and offices. Wounded men walked its
wide. dusty streets: attachments OF
infantry went through 1t swiftly and
utterly bored; motor ~lorries cruised w
and down roaring, I suppose, for
something to loo at or talk to.
In the centre Of it I found one
fanny, or rather his marble bust
brooding owe a minute iron rallied
garden of half dried asters opposite
a shut up school which, II appeared
from the description fanny had
founded somewhere in the arid 3Os. II
was precisely the sort of school that
fanny by the q of him would have
invented. Not wen French adapta-
bility could make anything of II. So
fanny had his school with a faint
perfume OF varnish all to himself In
n hot stiffness of used up air and little
whirls of dust.
And because that town seemed SO
barren | met there a French Gen
eral whom I would have gone very
far 10 have encountered. He, like the
others. had created and tempered an
army for certain work in a certain
place and its hand had been heavy on
the boche. We talked of tho
French woman was and had n
and was doing.
| ''They said she was foolish: they
! said she was frivolous: they said she
was worldly-and now you've seen
!, haven't you?" said the General,
|, We extolled woman in chorus FOL
her goodness and her faith and heI
+, snlendid courage. When We parted
I I went back and made my %profound'
2 est apologies to fanny, who mus
have had a mother.
Town Has New Aspect.
The pale. overwhelmed town did moi
now any longer resemble IA woman
who had tainted in public but one
who must endure in public all man
ner of private woe and still viii
hands that never cease working pos
sesses her soul and il sanely strong.
The guns began to speak agar
among the hills that we dived into
The air grew chillier as We CLIMBED
, Forest and wet rocks closed around III
/. in the mist to the sound OF waters