Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1919-02-18

big rivers l could swim. OF course, I
got soaked to the skin every time
did 1t, but I was becoming hardened
to that.
These little bitches, however, were
too narrow to swim and too wide to
jump. They had perhaps two feet Of
water In them and three feet of mud,
and it was almost invariably a case Of
wading through. Some Of them, no
doubt. could have jumped If had
been in decent shape. but with bad
ankle and in the weakened condition
in which / was, 1t was almost out OF
the question.
One night I came to a ditch about
eight or nine feet wide. thought /
was strong enough to jump 1t and 1t
was worth trying as the discomfort /
suffered after wading these bitches
was considerable. Taking long run,
I Jumped as hard as / could, but /
missed 1t by four or five inches and
landed In about two feet Of water and
three of mud. Getting out Of that
mess was quite job. The water was
too dirty and too scanty to enable me
to wash off the mud with which was
covered and 1t was too wet to scrape
of. just had to wait until 1t dried
and scrape 1t off then.
In many sections of Belgium through
which I had to pass encountered
large areas of swamp and marshy
ground and rather than waste the
time involved in looking for better
underfoOting / might not have
found anyway used to pole right
through the mud. Apart from the
. discomfort of this method Of travel
ing and the slow time made, there
was an added danger to me In the fact
that the squash, squash" noise which
/ made might easily be overheard by
Belgians and Germans and give my
position away. Nobody would cross
q swamp or marsh in that part Of the
country unless he was trying to get
away from somebody, and realized
my danger but could not get around It.
It was a common sight In Belgium.
to see small donkey and a common
ordinary milch COW hltched together,
pulling wagon. When / first OBJ
served the unusual combination. ]
thought 1t, was "a donkey and OK or
bull, bur closer inspection revealed to
me that cows were being used for the
purpose.
From that I was able to observe
there must be very few horses left In
Belgium except those owned by the
Germans. Cows and donkeys are now
horses and mules. Altogether ! spent
nearly eight weeks wandering through
Belgium, and in all that time I don't
believe saw more than half q dozen
horses in the possession OF the native
population.
One Of the scarcest things In Ger
many apparently, is rubber. for ]
noticed that their motor trucks, or lor-
xies. unlike our own, had no rubber
tires. Instead heavy iron bands were
employed. / could hear them come
rumbling along the stone roads for
miles before they reached the spot
where I happened to be In. hiding,
When / saw these military roads In,
Belgium for the first time. with their
heavy cobblestones that looked as II
they would last for centuries, real.
lied at once why 1t was that the Ger
mans had been able to make such a
rapid advance into Belgium at the
start of the war. "a.
noticed TINT the Belgians used
dogs to considerable extent to pull
their carts, md thought many times
that IL / could have stolen one Of
those dogs 1t would have been very
good companion for me and might. II
the occasion arose, help me out In a
fight. But / had,no way Of feeding It
and the animal would probably have
starved to death. / could live on veg
etables, which I could always depend
upon finding in the fields, but dog
couldn't, and so ] gave up the idea.
: The knack. Of making Are with two
pieces of dry wood Ilhad often read
about, but Ishad never pnt 1t to test
and for various reasons concluded
that It would be unsafe for me TO
build q FIRE even II I had matches. IN
the first place, there was no absolute
need for It. I didn't have anything
to cook nor utensils to cook 1t In even
II / had. While the air was getting
to be rather cool at night, / was usu-
ally on the go at that time and didn't
notice 1t. In the daytime. when !