The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1919-11-13
transforming At THE FRONT.
Being an Interesting FIRST Hand Ae'
ossnt al hos our Boys Lived on thu
premi Lines In France.
n, Frances and Grace Hoyt


We wen, to tiny hotel In Chau.
mont, where they almost ~cpi a, the
idea OF our wanting them 10 take our
steamer trunk upstairs by way OF the
narrow stairs winding through the
little tower. and they thought II was
almost unreasonable Of US not TO agree
20 letting them leave II in the bar.
xhich was the room into which every
one entered; they said they wouldn't
mind In the least our getting neces-
sary garments out Of II at any time
After much persuasion, IL was put In
our room.
Just outside our window the basket
maker sat and worked over the sewer,
all day. The little children played at
soldier" fighting with their wooden
swords, running TO salute every officer
as he passed, and waiting to see US so
that they might practice their English
expressions, Of how dee doc" and
"gude byee:" they always shook hands
with us, and they were dreadfully
dirty. A youg girl sat in window
across the court and sewed on mus
cites: mothers scolded and screamed
at their children; chickens were
brought in, head down, emitting
strange sounds, and there were num-
berless dogs which barked constantly,
but the nights we're as quiet as the
days were noisy.
There are two things which anyone
having been to Chaumont will long
remember, One Is the dwarf, the up
per part of whose body is as large as
TINT Of full grown man, but who is
no more than three feet high. His
voice has all the penetrating reson-
ance of boiler factory, and it is he
who does the work II "town crier,"
apparently, for he announces engage
ments, weddings, tells all the news,
and he sells papers with the most tre-
mcndous believing that one can i'm
.agine; he was a great friends Of ours
before we left
The other curiosity is the man who
used to be with circus, but who was
stranded" on account Of the war: so
he does trucking with what is left Of
his menagerie, camel aad a mule,
which he harnesses together; all three
Of the party do their work most seri-
ously.
An enormously fat woman walks
through the streets at about six each
morning, and sings out that she has
fresh vegetables pour les lapins." In
the park, up near the "Y" headquar-
ters, wild young men sits all day,
two girls always near him, and when
he sees soldiers coming down the path,
he suddenly wakes from his lethargy,
whirls round and round, and sings a.
strange thing about one Carolyn" no
one has ever understood the words,
the man (who the gamins say is "fou"
probably makes them up as he goes
along). But our boys laugh until they
cry over him, give him sous, and the
girls hurry him off and spend it for
beer. The canal which twisted and
turned beside the Marne, on the way
out of Marnay, is bordered at either
side by row Of tall lindens, seeming
ly about the same distance apart as
those which had lined the hundred of
miles of reads over which we had
travelled; I've measured the distance
between the trees as nearly as we
could, one day, they were just seven of
our steps apart and the fields through
which ii wound were marvels Of culti-
vation, especially when one realized.
that since the beginning Of the war all
the work upon them had been done by
either women or old men, that the old
people seldom have machinery Of any
sort with which to do it: even the
cleaning Is done by hand.
/, was not yet dark when we reached
the chateau which had been lent to us
for the evening, and we drove through
the gardens until We came to the
place where the performance was 70
be given. There we had surprise,
for we found that real stage had
been erected, there were candle foot
lights with tin cracker boxes as re-
flectors, and there was curtain TO
draw. Such magnifcencc was new to
us, but the officers explained 1t byIl
saying that some Of the boys had writ
ten a play tjust that afternoonD |
which they were going to give by way |
Of celebrating the enlisting of prac-
,ically all the young men in Powder
River. Wyoming, who composed ono Of
the companies. Such gay, sweet boys
they were; and when one Of the Off
GERS told US that II was really a sort
Of farewell party, We knew tina, IL
~. 49, srx.sru ff. the .