The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-10-17
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- ,iie aIcn across the street, few feet away,
.e s WHICH they would soon pass, with the
ana French flags intertwined and the
not1o III Dig scrawly letters "SOyes les Bienvenus.
she explained that I was an American They
seemeu 10 understand, and their faces lighted up,
1or InIs was IN early June, and these pitiful
ones VINO had been where little had reached
lneIn Tor nearly four years, knew that the Ameri-
cans were in France in good numbers now and
their allies
SO the group ceased to shrink from my camera.
woman even thrust her child forward and
smoOthed its hair so that it would look well in the
picture. But, just as 1 was about to snap the
shutter, another woman in the group, standing
little back, looked at me with expression that
was full of condemnation, full of appeal, as she
said: Yes my friends, let stand uD straight,
so that he can get good photograph of misery!"
Then she laughed bitterly, and well, did not
take the picture.
At this moment the rest of the convoy began to
come out OF the station led by the Chasseurs' lit
tie band With them came Red Cross men and
nurses, carrying helping those who could not
walk into the waiting camiOns and ambulances.
1 put up my camera and hurried ahead to reach
the casino, whittier the procession bound, be-
fore their arrival there. Someone struck I'D LA
MarSefllaise,' with a high shrilI
voice. AS climbed upon the front seat of an
ambulance and we started to pass the crowd
thought for a moment that 1 was now going to
see, going to hear what had come up from Paris
for-the glad burst of enthusiasm, OF happiness
from these people that they fully realized
that they were in France among their own, free
from the German yoke, which had lain on their
necks since 1914. But ambulance went by
the procession there other voices raised
to join that of the singing woman, and after few
bars she too, stopped singing and the procession
went on, silent, shutting, except for some small
boys, town boys, who trudged ahead of the Chas-
seurs, still playing their tune drum and bugle.
I reached the casino ahead of the procession
and waited at the door for them 10 come down the
Rue du Casino. The narrow, steep street was
crowded along its sidewalks with townspeopIe
and from windows flung the tricolor, while the
American flag waved here and there, too. As the
procession around the head of the street the
people hailed it with cheers and the waving of
flags. The Chasseurs played Ioudly-now
it "Vive PArmee" they were footing A few
of the children raised their heads and looked with
glad eyes the enthusiastic natives who were
trying hard to cheer them home. An old man
in the procession Strengthened up and shouted
give lie General Joffre." But otherwise there
were no cheers, thrills of happiness nor any.
thing but just that dOwn-bent attitude that shut
fling walk that dazed whipped, cOwed express
sion. 1t was, the woman at the station had
said misery. For Evian is the clearing house of
misery these days.
1t was not so at first, the American Red Cross
doctor told me, and the subprefect of the de-
partment of the Haute-Savoie Also assured me-
(Which is why we make such great effort to
cheer them as they come in nowadays" he said
'aThey are crushed, these people; they are like
dead men and women, and the children, even the
little ones are scarcely alive to the situation
Free from Germany once mOref They cannot be-
leve it-there is scarcely enough strength left In
their poor minds and bodies for them to be able
to understand"
Eyes" added the Red Cross doctor, pointing out
a girl OF eighteen or nineteen who passed; look
at the expression the face Of that girl"
looked. I caught here eye as she turned In my di-