The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1918-01-19

S"'S
A Metro" train pulled into the Alma
station on the Champs Elysees line. 1t
was nearly six o'clock and every seat
was taken and the aisles were crowd
ed. The crowd, as in the New York
subway during rush hours, packed
itself tightly around the side doors of
the cars.
A slender, f~air-haired, well-dressed
girl-not more than twenty years old
managed to burst through the knot of
officers, fashionably gowned women
and civilians who were jammed at the
center side door of the first-class car.
Behind her trailed a man wearing the
uniform of a French soldier.
She held his sleeve clutched tightly
in her hand, and he followed her with
fumbling steps.
No sooner had they entered than
the train started, and the girl, still
pulling the soldier after, edged away
from the door and to the nearest seats
there are cross seats like in railway
cars In the Paris underground system.
Two young women-clad in furs and
silks, their blackened eyes, scarlet lips
and crimsoned cheeks proclaiming
them of the d~emi-monde, were occupy
Ing the nearest seat.
"Will you please give your place to
q mutile of the war;" said the fair
haired girl, the soldier always at her
heels.
Instantly, as the crowded train
stared with curious eyes. both women
arose. The girl pushed her companion
forward from out of the crowd and he
sat down. She sat beside him.
When the soldier sat down one
could understand why the girl led him,
and why he stumbled uncertainty. He
was sightless, and the blue powder
marks still staining his cheeks and
forehead showed what had blinded
him.
And as he sat there one could see.
why the fair-haired girl had led him
by the sleeve. He had no handsl Both
arms had been amputated just below
the elbow.
Sorrows of Their Own.
The crowd stared as crowds will
stare-some %curiously, some feelingly,
some dispassionately, for they had un-
dergone their own sorrows in this war,
others critically as they wondered who
the beautiful, fair-haired girl might be
and what was the name Of the soldier
hero.
Nearly all had thought, when the
girl entered the car with her compan-
ion, that she was an American, n of
those engaged in war relief work and
attached to a hospital or home for the
blind, taking out a sightless man. Such
sights are common in Paris; American
girls and women take blinded and Grip
pied soldiers walking in the Bots de
Bologne, in the Champs Elysees, in the
Tuileries gardens. And they take
them to the outdoor terraces of the
cafes along the grande ~boulevards and
to theaters, too.
But the perfect French uttered by
the fair-haired girl when she request
ed the seat for her companion indicat-
ed clearly enough she was no Ameri-
can. She was French, porn and bred.
The soldier, a young, rugged, black
haired figure, clad in the familiar no.
rizon-blue uniform of the French line
regiments, wore the CroiX de Guerre,
with two palms and a star, the Me-
daille Militaire and the Cross of the
Legion of Honor, pinned to his tunic.
France has no other medals.
He sat half facing her and the girl
sat half facing toward him. He nudged
her with the stump of the arm nearer
her and she took it under her own
arm. The soldier was plainly greatly
fatigued and he leaned toward her,
whispering something.
Soldier and Bride.
Apparently in answer to his request,
she removed the horizon-blue kept,
with the gold numerals, "107," indicat-
ing the number of his regiment, on the
front, and smoothed his shock of raven
black hair. When his hat was removed
one could see a great V-shaped scar in
the front of his scalp, where trepan-,
ming had been escorted to for q frac-
tured skull.
The girl kept the kept in her lap
and the tired soldier leaned his head
on ner SIOulueT. his eyeleSS IdCe WAS
close to her milky white throat. Then
she turned her head toward him and
kissed him lightly on the cheek.
Not even the most brazenly curious
dared stare for a while after that, but
the kiss had shown plainly enough that
the couple were married. Then it came
back to most of the passengers, in the
car who the soldier was and who his
bride was. 1t was only a fortnight ago
that the daily newspapers told of a
beautiful girl proposing to aid marry
ing a soldier who was sightless, arm
less and had undergone a trepanning
operation for a fractured skull.
The girl and the soldier had both
been born and brought up in the same
little town In Normandy. They had
scarcely known n another except IN