Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1919-02-04
BY yINLFRED BLACK.

PARIS. Feb. 3.--The wild flowers are
in bloom in Belloau wood again. Pink
and white and delicate blue, saw
them there to-day. They have never
bloomed so early in tho spring or late
in the winter before. tho peasants say.
1t is usually March before the Bel
leau woods arc gay with nodding
flowers, but now the poor bombed,
crushed and broken trees are gar
wreath of tho clematis and prickly
leaves of the holly arc green and shiny
and the mistlctoe CLEANS white, like
the ghost of some dead flower.
1t is as if the whole forest woro
draped in funeral flowers in honor of
the brave dead asleep SO deep in the
broken earth below.
1t was in Bcllcau woods that the
b American boys first rushed into the
open and chased the fleeing foe. and
many of our blood lie buried on the
edge OF the woods.
FAMOUS CARNAGE GROUNDS
RESEMBLES PARK GROUNDS
1t is such a quiet pretty little grove
OF trees. The place Of the Americans.
as the peasants arc beginning to call
it. just such stretch OF upland forest
as we have in 4 thousand little pleasure
parks at home.
OF the town where 1 was a little girl
just the place for picnics and swings
and harmless merrymakings. How
strange to think Of all that has hap
pened in Gelleau woods such little
while ago.
1t wis quite easy TO see Il all when
YOU stand on the hill among the dying
trees that look as IL some dreadful
cyclone had twisted their torn branches
and broken stumps.
The valley spreads below like a green
and lovely vision; the plain widens like
Il map. and through it and winding
to the surrounding hills are the clean
white roads of France
TRENCHES ARE LIKENED
TO PLAY bitches HERE
The trenches our boys used are not
ut all elaborate in Belleau wood; they
arc just little narrow, shallow bitches,
such as YOU and have played in at
home; muddy and half full of cloudy
ditch water and scooped out in the
sides here and there with special holes
where machine guns nested.
Along this shallow ditch the wild
flowers blossom. pink and blue. and
beside it and close to it up and down
the hillside we stumbled again and
again upon a shallow grave with a
half buried hand or foot exposed:
these arc the Germans who stayed too
long in Belleau wood after the Ameri-
ca rs came through.
Helmets, 'duds" cartridges. belts. a
broken pipe, n smashed cantecn and
once Il wrinkled soaking photograph
case of leather with a soaked and I'M
recognizable photograph inside it-all
such things as these I saw. not once.
but dozens of times in Beleau wood
to-day, where the lush green grass
springs already upon the battle fields
and tries its eager best 10 hide the
scars of war.
AT EDGE OF WOODS LIE
SLAIN AMERICAN HEROES
Down in the wide fields below, the
slow white oxen drew the old
fashioned plows for the French peas
ants. who already arc beginning to till
their ravaged fields again, and calm
and smiling and at peace the whole
world seemed.
But. oh, below at the edge OF the
wood the rows and rows OF graves
where our hoys lie asleep in far and
foreign land!
They look SO strange. these rows Of
graves. especially from a distance.
There is broad, squat wooden
cross a; the. head Of each grave, and
at the top OF the cross is a round disk
which tells the name of the man. his
company and regiment. and something
in the shape of these disks and in the
portions OF the old squat crosses makes
them look not like crosses, but like
little round-faced children standing
with wtsttul trusting arms outheld
in kind OF loving. gentle. childlike
Rows and rows Of little lonely visit
full children they seem like: it was
strange and very sat and yet somehow
comforting and human in all the quick