The sun., 1918-08-04
Sad Little Lives Frightened in War Zone
the Huns Believe Tha
the America Red Symbol Should Really a
BY ELEANOR BOOTH SIMMONS.

men left TO marry when the carnage Is
ended) and live peacefully once more in
their homes and coax into fruitfulness the
earth that is now so battle SCARED and
barren.
Butt seems aS if, as long as it shall
be remembered how those thousands of
small Annettcs and JeanneS and MARES
have suffered, the enemy that caused that
suffering must be hated.
Annette Dubois was in August, 1914,
the first hot week of that August when
the Great War broke out. Seven care
free wears she had lived with her mother.
Nine. Dubois, and her older sister, Yvonne,
and her brother Jean, who considered
himself the man of the family, though
he was such STRIPPING in the com
Portable little house in the gray stone
village in Lorraine which had been the
property of the Dubois family for gen
erations
War Parts Family.
few miles away was that line made
in 1870, dividing French from German
Lorraine. But they were on the right
side Of the line, and though their hearts
Were often sore at the thought that tho
Kaiser should hold any part of their be
loved province at least they never dreamed
of his sending his abhorred soldiers over
the line
What should Annette, PLAYING with her
wooden DOLL or Yvonne, meeting her lover
and hemming linen for the wedding soon
TO be-what should Nine Dubois or young
Jean, tlling the garden and milking the
COW and keeping the small family to-
gether-what should they know of the
plottings of mad Emperors for the de-
struction of the unsuspicious worldf
The blow fell War was declared
Jean, barely 10 and boyish for his age,
put on the uniform and marched away.
Annette, lifting her wooden doll high to
watch her brother, piped up "Vive la
Francew
"Nive la France Strasbourg" came
back Jeans voice. with one backw ward look
at the mother and sisters he was leaving to
carry on at home.
Yvonne stood silent In few hours
her lover also would go and tears, she
knew, would come. Should she let her
MS last memory be Of a girl with red
cyesY Jamais SO she stood gripping
her hands, while Nine. Dubois tried to
speak eheerfuly as she turned to attend
Ia the cow and the litter of pigs.
"They will be back before Christmas"
she comlorted Yvonne. 1.-THE war will be
over, and Jean and Pierre will return, and
then there will be the wedding. Annette
shall have a new dress for it. And the
village, it will be gay. n est ce past"
Annette Has to Flee.
In one way the village was gay during
those first few weeks-gay with the fresh
red and blue of the fine uniforms in which
the poiIus went TO the war. They filled
the village, those French troops, and An
nette, her wooden doll under one arm.
would pick flowers and timidy present
them to the men in the clothes like those
Jean wore when he marched away. Eager
" Nine Dubois and Yvonne watched for
the communiques from the front that was
SO near, as the battle ragged on the Marine,
and they trembled for Jean and Pierre.
The battle came close, first the French
swept forward, then the Germans. beat
ing their way on. menaced the little gray
stone village. and Nine. Dubois and
Yvonne, with dry eyes, packed up such
things as they could carry themselves and
could pack on the back of the COW, and,
with Annette and the wooden doll, they
fed over the dusty roads cut out by the
motor trains carrying munitions-fled to
the home of an old aunt, in another of
Frances tiny red rooted villages. further
from the front.
They STAYED there till Christmas. The
holiday did not bring Jean and Pierre, nor
the end of the war; but it pushed the Ger