Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1917-04-18
,allid face and furtive eyes when she
A German "~victory' on the high seaa

palll0 lace anQ IurClvo eyes when
said:
MATS. monsieur, c'etait surtout la
so%uffrance moralei"
She was a little shopkeeper. and a
woman evidently somewhat superior
to her class. She lived in a village
some miles from Nesle. Her parents,
who must nave been we'll on in years,
for she looked SO, though possibly she
may have been a few years younger
than she looked, lived in another viii
lage close by. In order to go to see
them she had to obtain a laissez-pas-
ser from the kommandatur. The price
OF the stamp on this laissez-passef. was
4 francs SO centimes. One day she
went to see her father and mother
without taking out the laissez-passer
costing At. SOC. She was caught in the
act, brought before a tribunal Of Of
ficers n sentenced to pay a fine of
80 francs Not having At. Soc, she still
less had 80 francs. h raj condemn
ed to fourteen days in a cell. No won
der h looked ten years older than
her age.
There was another woman. She
might have been, under different cir
cumstances. of those hale and
hearty peasant ONE of France
whose cheeks are like their own
pommes d'api. She was pale and worn,
out Avn dAAu dlcII SIIll. let dS we
talked her eyes glanced around as If
in search of something she knew not
what, but feared. The place was full
of British Tommies and the ruins
alongside were gay with the tricolor
OF republican France. That woman
was obsessed with some dread, as a
child might be after nightmare. I
wondered what it was. and only un-
derstood when I heard her say
10 loo >yo;o <o,}o,no ,,o~3. a.
Boches, a chaque coin de rue"
Women Threaten Prisoner.
In a previous dispatch I endeavored
to tell of a little incident which spoke
volumes. We were talking in the
square Of Nesle to a group of women
who a been turned out Of a neigh
boring village before the Germans set
it in flames. At 3 O'Clock in the morn
ing they had received orders to clear
out. They received no food and were
allowed to carry nothing away with
them. Just with the clothes they stood
In they were sent into a desolate
waste. They might have gone miles
and miles In n direction without
finding a vestige of human ~habitation.
They made their way painfully, more
by luck than anything, in the direction
OF Nesle, picking up on their way a
poor derelict from another neighbor-
ing village, a man stone blind, partly
paralyzed and half an idiot, who had
been turned adrift. They took the poor
nondescript in their charge and were
still looking after him when I encoun-
tered them at Nesle.
AS we were talking-it was difficult
to get them to talk, for they were daz-
ed and dulled-we heard some young
German prisoner being brought along
in charge of two British Tommies.
followed by half a dozen boys and
girls of from IL to 8 jeering at the
Boche. At the sight of the field gray
uniform those women, who a moment
before seemed stupefied. were trans
formed into animate figures of the
spirit Of hatred and revenge. AS If
moved by n common impulse they
became like the furies of a Greek
tragedy. With hands clawing the air
and bodies tense with hate, they
screamed at the unlucky prisoner. II
looks could kill that Boche would
have died a thousand deaths, and II
the British Tommies had not beer
there to safeguard him he would have
been torn limb from limb. 1t was one
moment into furies who had spoken
Of the tmoral suffering Of the German
occupation. ~
There was a man Ismet in one OF
the abandoned French towns-an ed
ucated man bowed down with year,
and suherings. He was too sad and
broken to be either vehement in III,
expression Of opinion az to the Ger.
mans are emphatic Of his description
LOT Anything.
have. or had, two SOM in thu
army he said. They were in such
and such regiments when the wa,
broke out, and I have not yet heart
whether they are alive or dead. TIL,
Boshes told US France had been blet
white-God knows! I look around fol
my boys and see only men in KHAKI
ana men in blue whom at first we dif
not know to be Jul Frenchmen. And
p have not yet heard whether my son,
are dead or alive. 7
Ones ! could look forward Il
spending my declining years in com.
Lforl,D he went on. Nov. what 40
- around mel I have Z house I'M
I'M ruins: the fruit trees IN my earder
Iase destr0yod; what money II Ind ~
I1noe. What the tnyador did not ~
9 me- n Aneg ana ;taxaskI I'd r
Il rvs - theee poor people ~ vara r
1Woeeo stA4o than T."
1hAfo W1o q proud and nohfa rS1l
6Sncs abont fhie Whfto.fsasS1 vtses
nalfsdsold lnan'sspsech that va 81
Thsss 40 ,oniysa ~ * muiA.udt
j nous i~r0tfee1tOns th1t crowd upong n,
fnihd- ukSs tbs AnySsso k sehs -. ~
seAseesSsyeek 49, ehessss les d. ial