The Cordova daily times., 1917-02-08
ARRAS CHILDREN PLAY U UMDER
 SHELL FIRE
(By Associated Press)

Niitl I HE DNi ioIi ShMlED IN FRANCE, Feb. 7. - To those who
 have lived among them, the children
 of the war zone in France will ever
 remain a psychological riddle. It is
 startling to the newcomer at the war
 to find them here at all It Is posi-
 lively uncanny to see them at play
 where a shell might break almost any moment, utterly oblivious to the sol diers and scenes about them, and with senses so attuned to the ordinary nerve racking noises that only a pro- !onged Hull in the ceaseless roar of guns would cause them the least con cern.
 They cling with their elders to the remnants of their shell shattered homes in the bombarded towns and Villages, where even yet the German guns send their shells. Some have been born within sound of the can non, and others have come into their first sense of being in the midst. of battle. The strange phenomenon of life to them will be the unwonted still. ness of peace.
 A striking picture it is to see a lit tie French girl, five or six years old, with plaited "pigtail' down her back, tripping bareheaded along road wherever soldier men venture only under the protection of their big steel hats. Such a little girl sat and softly sang and knitted in front of her home near an old Flemish mill one bright and warm December noon, while score of aeroplanes whirled and fought overhead and the high blue sky was filled with the fleecy cotton balls that come from bursting shrap- mel shells. She could see the scared and scared lines on the distant hills which were the enemy trenches, and still further back the occasional white hot flashes of enemy guns.
  all the world than that at Arras. Ar ras itself is a strange and ghostly city. Some of the houses are just as their owners left them during the first bombardment in October two years ago. Others have been pulver- ized along with the cathedral, the city hall and the railway station three favorite targets of the German gun ners. The enemy lines skirt the east ern edge of the city and daily from these messengers of death are sent into Arras-bursting in fury from the sky.
 In the midst of all this malignity of war some two score children or more go to school Their class room is in the cellar Of a house so we'll demol- ished that few additional shells would scarcely change the character of the mess of debris that serves as a protective roof It would take a ter rifle bombardment to interrupt them at their lessons. The muffled sound of shells crashing in the distance has become far too commonplace to at tract attention.
 All Arras lives under ground There are quiet periods of the day when the women, children and old men ven ture abroad for friendly call at a cellar or for the sake of a stroll and breath of fresh air. Op- portunity after opportunity has been given them to leave, but they prefer to remain with what is, or was, their very own. Three persons were killed just outside the school one day, but the children in the cellar knew noth- ing of the tragedy. When school is out each afternoon the children are told to hurry home as fast as they can go, and there is a great pattering of little wooden soled shoes down the streets.
 There are scores of other towns within the fire zone, but not quite so close to the war as Arras. where the children live by hundreds. It is no infrequent thing to hear mothers call