Weekly journal-miner., 1918-05-01
ARTICLE l. (By Judson C. Welliver)

 the sweetheart of the world, the fav- orite in the family of the nations.
 It might be possible to fight France, but never to hate hcr-until the Hun brought his lust of power and territory and dominion, and taught the world what hatred meant. Not long ago I stood one autumn afternoon on a little hilltop in the midst of Champagne. Five miles away was Rheims, whence we had just come: Rheims, with its ruined cathedral and it's record of almost daily bombardment by German guns for many months. The skeleton of the ruined pile still bore proudly up, dominating the wide-fung plain.
 It was the height of the harvest season. From our observation height the plain spread in all directions. The little. unfenccd fields presented a vast irregular patchwork in all colOrs to which ripe autumnal vegetation lends itself.
 But we noticed that only women and girls, boys and old men. with a sprinkling Of canvalcsccnt soldiers were doing the work.
 Suddenly one of our party, study ing a line of low hills possibly five miles away, exclaimed:
 Look! There's a cannonadc going on, right under our noScsr
 Sure enough, all along the range of hills little puffs of smoke were ris- ing and spreading themselves lazily 
 ious grew the bombardmcnt.
 The bochc at his afternoon amuse- mcnt of straiing our line over there" dryly observed the French officer who was escorting Us.
 We produced our glasses, and stud jed it closely Everybody at once made the same discovery.
 "Why." we exclaimed in chorus, 'thc people over there are going right ahead with their field work, lit orally under the cnemys fire, as if they had never dreamed of doing 1t in any other way"
 The officer shrugged. That IS what living in France means to lis, in these times" he said.
 We began 10 sec more evidences of the business of war. \ line of observation sausage balloons was strung along over the French lines.
 Then, out of mass of low-lying. cumulus clouds. crcpt what looked like a fly walking along the painted picture of a cloud.
 An airplanc!" somebody cX- claimed
 Yes: a German Gotha, making a dash to cut down the balloon near est to us," explained the officer.
 By this time we could make it out loon was adjusting his parachute to jump. The workers in the fields looked up from their tasks for mo- mcnt: then back to their harvesting.
 A couple of planes leapcd out from behind another cloud, and started to cut off the Gotha's approach to the endangered sausage"
 French planes to the rescuc" we shouted.
 The harvest workers. stopped again, leaned on their implements a mo- mcnt, made sure that the beaten Gotha was diving into obscurity Of the cloud from which it had emerged, and returned to their tasks.
 That was life in French harvest field in wartime.
 Another day WIG saw another pie turc of wartime Francc-of France in the struggle for its fife. We were taken into a country village on the ancient road from Albert mp to Ba- paumc: the broad plain over which the tide of war three times has surgcd. Ii was carly spring.
 An old Frenchman, his wife and q girl of perhaps twelve were trudging along the roadside, toward Bapaume. Each carried pack, containing a few household ncccssarics. We had passed them on the road, but they overlook us while we rested to cat a lunch of sandwiches and thcrmos- bottle coffee.
 We stopped them. and learned their story of living in France in wartime. It was much the same, but different.
 They, also, had been driven out of their little hamlet home when the war came to ii. They had seen their house in flames, and had joined the stream of terrified pcasantry hurry ing away 10 AmienS. There were grandfather and grandmother. father and mother, son and daughter. They had owned three or four little strips of ground adjacent to the village m which, like most Of the French agri- cultural workers, they lived. There they had raised wheat, vegetables, sugar bects, kept d COW, some chick ems and pigs, and been happy.
 When they had reached, Amicns they expected to be safe. But the Germans captured that town, though they held it only short time. Dur ing inc German occupation they were under rigorous military control; but it brought no great privation, for the town had supplies for that period
 When, after the Marnc, the Hun fell back, this family disiutcgratod The father and son escaped and joined the French army. One was