South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1917-12-28
The American Army in "BiHeHs
BY WOODS HUTCHINSON. NJ. D.

The fourth and last great sanitary
requirement. shelter. has been tenn
porarily solved in our American
army zone by the use Of billets. This
means that the men are housed in
squads of from 10 to % in barns,
haylofts. store rooms. granaries,
stables, the second story of hen
roosts and sheep-pens. After these
have been thoroughly cleaned Of the
dust cobwebs and other deposits OF
past centuries, their entrances white
washed. and the inhabitants per
suaded gently to remove as many as
possible OF their COWS. horses. goats,
sheep and poultry from the ground
floor and entrances Of the sleeping
lofts, they become fairly wholesome
and quite tolerable temporary &C
cOmmodatiOn for the use of troops
The thing that causes this curious
congestion of livestock under the
family roof. and also makes il very
difficult 10 relieve, is that rural
France is still constructed and or
gained on lines laid down in the
10th and 18th centuries. Then the
forests we're full of wolves. and the
roads infested 10y thieves and other
members of the nobility. and crops,
livestock or other movable property
| left out Of doors after dusk had
about as much chance Of surviving
till morning as the proverbial snow
fake in Hades.
Consequently the French peasant,
who has at least one of the attributes
ascribed TO his Bourbon kings. that
he forgets nothing. has been SO
schoOled by centuries of bitter ex-
perience that he would no more
dream of goinS to steep at night
without every one of his precious
animals under the same roof with
him. where he can hear every noise
they make during the night and go
10 their assistance and defense.
than he would of leaving one OF his
children out loose on the streets aft
er bedtime.
; This intimate and affectionate
domiciliary association has certain
Disadvantage the animals, and
one Of the bitterest complaints Of
misbehavior on the part of our
troops lodged with the provost mar
shall in certain village in the Amer
lean zone was that OF an indignant
old lady. who came in to complain
volubly that the troops billetted up
on her talked so loudly and so late
and rabbits awake,
So ingrained has the instinct OF
housing all his belongings under the
same roof at night become, that
when il was politely and gently sug-
gested by the American officers that
the furred and wOlly and feathered
pets should be moved on TO the
barns. they We're met by the simple
staggering objection that there were
no barns Anything approaching
that character in the village was
simply an annex of the house or the
house an annex of il. while in the
fields around the village and in the
open country there was not so much
as a shack that would shelter a doz-
en- chickens.
This utter absence Of every kind
and sort of building in the fields,
outside OF the closely packed streets
of the villages. is what gives that
curiously half-wild. prairie-like pic
turesque appearance 20 the French
open country. However, after sew
eral conferences. out-buildings and
sheds Of different descriptions as re-
mote as 20 or 80 yards from the
parental roof were discovered, TO
which the dear creatures could be
temporarily removed and vet visited
the night in order 70 keep them from
dying Of lonesomeness and a sense
Of neglect.
Another small international COM
plcarion that arose was that as soon
as the wheat and oats were harvest
ed. the peasants OF some of the
homesteads in which cur troops
were lodged insisted upon filling all
the space except that actually oc-
cupied by the cots OF the men. up
70 the roof with stacks and walls OF
sheaves. But the o. c. in that viii
was a born manager of men. He
discovered in one OF the barns q
little one horse threshinE machine
borrowed a~cOuple OF horses from
the transport lines. and called for
volunteers. A dozen soldier Soys