The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1918-06-21
CHESTERS HOME AGAIN FROM The WAR ZONE
Found No Newspapers, Cakes Band Music and Ice Cream
in France at War-Fire Department Siren Brings
Memories of Aid Raids-Finds Much Difference
in America and France.

they will be able to hold out against
ed by the sheer weight of as fine sol
diers as there are in the world
How good that music was! There's
none in France away from the fight
ing fronts, none in the streets of
Paris. where long files of soldiers
march silently by, their faces serious
with that never-varying determine
ton to die that those who come la
ter may win; and all without a sin
gle note of fife OF tap of drum to
cheer their hearts or tighten their
footsteps. Men cannot be spared for
bands. So there are none. either, to
cheer the hearts of the civilians. who
have as important part in the war
as the soldiers; for every fighter at
the front must have a citizen at
home to feed him, and another to
clothe him, and another to put the
bullets in his gun.
A candy shop! Real chocolates and
bonbons and all sorts of enticing con-
factions! We hadn't seen candy for
months, except the all-too-little the
soldiers have in the camp canteens.
a greater marvel still bit further
on; bakery, with actual cakes in
the window! Cakes. regular deli
cious-looking, chocolate covered and
otherwise, pastries and petit four,
layer cakes cut open to show the
lines of mountaineering filing, pas
+ tries and petit fours, We started
and started at this riotous sight.
started in delight, then stared in
awe. for this seemed positively
wicked. There are no cakes in
/ France,
spin across the fresh green
park, full of shouting children al
play, and then the intoxication of
home; the hurrying from room to
room to find everything safe and
friendly and beautiful; the touching
of pieces of furniture which seemed
even to have personality, they
were so well loved; the resting in
favorite chairs which we had some
times feared might never hold us
again, the splashing in a bathroom
where every tile glistened a well
come, the dressing in fresh linen
which had not been to the war, the
doning OF the evening clothes which
no one wears over there, and then
the indescribable delight of a dinner
cooked by the good old home cook
her black face glistening with Joy:
such dinner, with the poignantly
remembered tiavors coming back
again. and all topped off with Won
! derful homemade ice cream! There
! is no ice cream in France
Out in the night life of the city,
OF course, Immediately after the cof-
fee, and no words can express the
Joy with which we drove into blazing
/ Broadway The glare and glow OF
the millions Of incandescent bulbs
seemed not only shameless but dan
gerous in their defiance of what
might possibly come from the skies
guided by their brazen indiscretion
The throngs of people. too, BY
night they We're even more startline
to us than by day, for the streets OF
Paris are not crowded after dark
and scarcely a crack of light peeps
forth from jealously shuttcred and
/ curtained windows, while such few
street lamps as there may be are SO
shroudod in their blue globes that
when one goes to the theatre one
. carries a pocket hashlight to find the
way home
Naturally we rushed to the thea
tire. something light, with music. -
and to us wonderful show. where
the girls Of the chorus were all girls
of our own land, and beautiful. and
wonderful dancers, and whore all
the songs and dialogues were in be-
loved American; and there was the
pep and zip of actors who, though
doing their part nobly in the war
have not yet been saddened by it. A
curious fact in connection with this
performance. In France, when a
bomb or shell eXplOdes deafeningly
in the near vicinity, it Is considered
good form to listen and calculate
nearness-but not to wince-then go
on talking as If nothing had hap
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